Thank you so much for all the love & support throughout the last year. I just wanted to make a quick note (that will appear on all WIP updates, so everyone has the chance to read it) about how I've organized the updates. Aside from Love Like Blood (which I'd finished & completed posting before moving onto the other updates so the story is complete & out of the way), the updates will be posted in the order of furthest back date of 'last update' to most recent.

I know some of you are really anxious for updates on specific fics & would like to ask for your continued patience as I move through this process. Literally every open fic in my story list has an update ready to go, so whatever story you've been waiting for will have a new chapter in the coming days/weeks.

Chapter Fifteen

Liars and Patchy Memories

The first emotion to strike Harry upon glimpsing the unexpected scene was shock. Though … for a brief, possibly whimsical moment, he wondered if shock could be considered an emotion, or if it was more akin to one's body going into shock—the way it staved off the reaction of those screaming nerve endings from reaching the brain. Perhaps surprise was a more fitting word. Yes, surprise, surprise was better.

Blinking rapidly a few times while Hermione righted her shirt and Remus shot up from where he'd been seated upon the bed, the first words to come to mind popped right out of Harry's mouth. "You told me this wasn't anything!"

"It wasn't—isn't!" Hermione insisted.

Remus, for his part, looked from one to the other and back, aware he'd missed something. "And when precisely did that conversation take place?" Harry had approached Hermione about her … dynamic with Remus? Why hadn't she said anything?

Oh, well, the werewolf imagined that was probably because it would've been spectacularly awkward … as perhaps best evidenced by the scene unfolding right now.

"A … a few days ago," Hermione confessed, her gaze rather conspicuously on the floor as she offered a shrug. "He told me he and Ron thought they'd noticed something different between us."

Remus' brows plucked upward. "And Ron?" Bloody hell, had things changing between himself and Hermione been obvious to everyone except him and Hermione? A bewildered sound that wasn't entirely human nearly escaped him.

Of course, the situation—or perhaps more appropriately, his reaction to the situation—was not helped by the pull of the nearing full moon. Suddenly he quite envied James, but only in this moment, being that James was still downstairs and blessedly oblivious to the mess currently unfolding in Sirius' old bedroom.

Holding up his hands in a placating gesture, even as he breathed deep to keep himself grounded, to keep himself away from the verge of bristling and snapping at the wizard, Remus began, "Whatever you think, whatever might or might not be happening between myself and ... anyone, I promise you this was not what it probably looked like."

Hermione was relieved for Remus' save, though … a bit confused by his very odd choice of words. It could certainly be that he was simply trying to assuage Harry's concern that there could be anything going on between himself and anyone, exactly as he'd said, but it felt … off. She was standing right there, already a part of the discussion, why not simply name her?

She turned a suspicious gaze on Remus in spite of herself.

"Remus is right," she said, even as Remus caught her look, the werewolf giving a small start at the meaning behind it, before they both returned their attention—just as fast, just before Harry could grow suspicious himself—to Harry. "It wasn't anything. I was just showing him some of the bruising from … from whatever happened to James and me down in the cauldron. That's all."

"A bruise is what that is?" Harry asked, his brows high on his forehead—he could admit he didn't get a very good look at it, given how quickly she'd covered up, and he had no desire to ask her pull her shirt down again.

Oh, Hermione didn't like this. This was the point where she had to fudge the truth a bit, and she could be a good liar under very specific circumstances—such as circumstances that saw to an enemy unknowingly endangering themselves—and lying to her best friend didn't fall anywhere even remotely near those parameters. But she had to try.

"Remus came to check in on me while you were gone and I was having some pain. He asked to take a look …. That was all." God, she hated herself for every false word that fell from her lips, but she couldn't think of anything else to say that wouldn't make things worse.

That wouldn't make whatever sense of betrayal that was already weighing on Harry worse.

She tried to cushion her own feelings at least with the acknowledgment that the lie wasn't too far from the truth. Tried and failed. It didn't matter that it might spare his feelings, it mattered that she was being dishonest with him, but she didn't know what else to do or say.

She really had been only showing Remus a mark on her body after all, and that was precisely what Harry had walked in on, but there was more to this than even she was aware. Something that was making Remus edgy, she could sense it from him.

Remus was rarely edgy, unless ….

"Oh my God," she said suddenly as the reason occurred to her, pivoting just enough to face Remus fully. "The full moon is close! That's why you're all … weird."

"Weird?" Remus echoed, his narrow features pinching.

Oh, she couldn't do this!

Sooner than either male in the room could say anything more about the affect of the nearing full moon, she turned back to Harry. Clasping her hands in front of her, she met his gaze in a genuine look of pleading.

"Look, you and Ron weren't entirely off the mark—"

"Hermione," Remus interrupted in a warning tone.

"Remus, please," she responded, her hissed words a little sharper than intended; she granted him an apologetic look before going on. "What I mean is … there isn't anything happening. That's completely true." She was somehow acutely cognizant of some of the tension draining from Remus' body then. "But … it's also true that we have grown closer. Nothing's come of it, and neither of us has any plans to change that. Not now, not any time soon." … Well, as far as she was aware, but she was equally aware—especially as of late—that sometimes Fate had other plans in mind.

Tipping his head back, Harry breathed deep. After a moment, he met her gaze. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so quick to assume I know what's going on, or to cast judgments."

"No, Harry, please, it's okay."

"It's not though, Hermione." Harry shook his head and forced a half-smile to his lips. He really needed to let whatever was—or wasn't—happening between them be. It wasn't his place to push one way or the other, even if he meant well. "You've just been through an ordeal, and I should be here for you, but I'm getting everyone worked up by jumping to conclusions."

"Um, hullo?"

James' voice sounded from the first floor. Remus shook his head—he was really taking this staying on the first-floor thing seriously.

Harry poked his head into the corridor. "Yeah, Dad?"

"Am I the only one famished around here?"

After they'd sat down to eat some dinner—the place was loaded with food, Molly Weasley had insisted, this way father and son could focus on their reacquaintance without more mundane concerns bogging them down—James had volunteered to wash the dishes. He thought perhaps trying out Hermione's 'scrubbing something straight to death' method to soothe his jangled nerves.

Kreacher had popped in, made an angry fuss about a human doing a chore, but then when James ignored him, he merely grumbled a bit and popped right back out. James decided he was simply glad to see the house elf back to his crotchety old self after leading his little fellows into the fray during the Battle of Hogwarts.

James wasn't even certain what had happened up there after Harry'd returned from collecting Hermione's things for her. All he did know was that while they'd tried to reconstruct who might've set that trap in the cauldron in the first place, and what it might've been used for—was it really a trap, or had it been some sort of secret meeting place, working as a trap only against intruders—there was some underlying sense of tension and strangeness from Hermione and Remus.

The conversation had dragged on for hours, making it only more painfully apparent that whatever answers they were hoping for would be no easy feat to come by.

In a way, James thought he should just consider himself fortunate that Hermione's new little friend Bat had opted to stay in her room sleeping. He imagined it sitting on her shoulder glaring at him the entire meal would've only made their long evening stranger still.

"Hermione and Harry have each gone up to bed. She brought up something for that *weird little cat she brought with her out of the cauldron"

James didn't look up at Remus' voice from the kitchen door, nor at the sound of footfalls crossing the tiled floor. He saw the werewolf stop beside the counter to his left from the corner of his eye.

"Are you … why are you washing dishes like a Muggle?" Sure, Remus wasn't a stranger to washing dishes by hand, but then again he was a half-blood.

Letting out a sigh, James shrugged as he shook some droplets from a plate and set it in the drainer. "I've been told it can be cathartic."

His eyes drifting closed, Remus nodded. He couldn't blame his friend for feeling conflicted or …. Or whatever else he might be feeling just now. This was a very odd, very confusing situation.

"Look, you could always just ask if it's bothering you so much."

Shoulders sloping downward, James uttered another sigh, albeit this one far noisier and more dramatic. Turning off the water, he shook out his hands and turned to face the werewolf. "You're right. Half-expecting—well, no, half-hoping—for someone to come in here and soothe my nerves. Bit childish of me."

"Glad one of us said it," Remus said with a smirk.

Stepping over to the kitchen table, James pulled out a chair and sat. Still not quite past the desire to be dramatic, he lurched forward, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his face into his hands.

One brow arching upward, Remus asked, "You finished?"

James breathed out a snicker. "Yeah. I'm just … I'm confused by, well, by a lot lately."

Remus couldn't pretend he hadn't noticed that James had actually looked sad during dinner. Oh, not the entire time, no—Harry would've noticed—but whenever Hermione would speak. James' gaze would flick up to land on her, but only for a split second before dropping glumly to his plate.

Though James hadn't been thrilled with the accidental close-quarters situation Remus had created earlier, his sullen demeanor now seemed at odds with simply feeling frustrated or out of sorts.

"Tell me what happened." Remus corrected the request sooner than James could give him a pointed look. "Scratch that. What do you remember about what happened?"

"That's the thing." James shrugged, sitting back in his chair. "Hermione asked me that, too, and—"

"What?" Remus didn't recall them speaking at all.

"In the hospital. You lot were sleeping." James shook his head, frowning. He scratched absently at his neck, unwittingly drawing Remus' eye to that location, where the werewolf's attention lingered as he tried to spot the mark Hermione'd mentioned.

"I remember falling down there. I remember almost breaking a rib." He puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled, trying to ignore the memory of her fingers brushing the bare skin of his torso as she'd wound that bandage around his middle. "I remember her patching me up and I remember talking. Apologizing, specifically."

Remus snorted a laugh.

James' brow furrowed. "What?"

His friend blinked innocently. "Oh, I'm sorry. You said you apologized, I figured you were joking."

Though he wanted to sulk—being poked fun at after the day, or days, he'd just had—but James could only laugh, aware what an absolute shit he could be sometimes.

Remus stepped over to the table, pulling out another chair to sit before his friend, despite his misgivings about getting too close to the other man with his wolfish side edging close to the surface. He dreaded to think what his earlier, revealing discussion with Hermione might have led to had Harry not walked in at the right—or possibly wrong, depending which side of him you asked—moment. "Go on."

"There's no more. That's all." A pensive frown curved James' lips and his hazel eyes narrowed. "We started down one of the tunnels, and … as soon as we crossed the threshold, Hermione was starting to have trouble remembering how long she'd been down there. Next thing I knew, she was unconscious in my arms, I felt like I'd gone ten rounds with a mountain troll, and I was handing her to Severus."

With a cringe, Remus shook his head. He wondered if he should tell James what Hermione'd told him. After all, she hadn't asked him not to discuss it with James.

Just as fast, however, the image of a fuming Hermione flickered before his mind's eye. Hmm, perhaps he should err on the side of caution.

"Hmm …." The thoughtful sound escaped James' throat before he even realized it.

Remus found himself leaning a bit nearer. He echoed the sound.

"Well," James started, now it was his turn to shake his head, "what if it's a memory charm, but not one in the traditional sense?"

When Remus' gaze flicked along his friend's throat again, he told himself it was only his curiosity. That he was merely still trying to glimpse that love bite Hermione'd left on the man, nothing more. "What are you thinking?"

James slumped a bit in his chair, folding his arms across his chest and his mind wandering. "What if it the memories are simply being obstructed? D' you think a pensieve would work on something like that?"

Remus cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to get a hold of himself. "I'm not … not sure. I'm not that knowledgeable on pensieves."

Dropping his arms, James folded forward again. Bracing his arms on his knees once more, he at last returned his attention to Remus as he started, "I think I know someone who …." His words slid off as he realized how close Remus had gotten while his mind had been elsewhere.

So close he could feel the werewolf's breath on his lips.

"Remus," James said, proud of himself in that moment for trying to be the sensible one, even as he found himself reluctant to sit back. "We talked about this."

Remus nodded, his gaze drifting to his friend's lips. "Oh, I know. I can't … I can't explain it clearly. It's like—"

His words were cut off at the sound of the kitchen door opening.

They each sat back before looking up to find a wide-eyed Hermione standing there. "I just … I, um …." She pointed further into the kitchen as she finished lamely, "Trouble sleeping, warm … warm milk. But I'll just—"

She didn't even finish her half-babbled sentence before simply spinning on her heel and walking back out, letting the door swing shut behind her.

James merely stared at the entryway in shock, uncertain what to do—let her go? Chase after her to explain … explain what? He wasn't sure there was any way to explain what she probably thought she'd interrupted. It was one of those terrible cases of something being exactly what it looked like.

Remus, knocked back to his senses by her abrupt intrusion, breathed out a very un-Remus-Lupin-like expletive.

Perhaps that had ... been a good thing, James tried to tell himself. Better this way, yes, he thought with a nod. Maybe if she thought there was something unfolding between him and Remus, she would believe that ... Believe what? he considered miserably, his chest aching over that look on her face a moment earlier.

Shaking his head, James let his eyes drift closed. "And here you thought her and me under the same roof was going to be the problem," he murmured, the chuckle that followed his words loaded with self-derision.

*I realized some people might find this statement off because Hermione didn't find Bat in the cauldron, however, when she & James emerged from the cauldron was the first time Remus saw Bat.