Chapter 41: Saturday, June 21, 1980 cont'd
"People become attached to their burdens, sometimes more than their burdens are attached to them."
-George Bernard Shaw
It took James threatening Sirius with a body bind to get him to agree to come back to Hermione's after the fiasco at the funeral. He had apparently thought he could make a scene, get into a fist fight with his two best friends, and threaten one of them at wandpoint and walk away without answering for his actions. James may buckle when it came to Sirius far too often and Remus was wallowing in guilt too deeply to call for him to apologize but Hermione had hit her limit of sympathy for Sirius today and he needed to apologize.
When they landed back in Hermione's living room, the first thing she did was yank the silver flask from Sirius' hand. After a long string of expletives that were met with a furious silencing charm, she shoved a bottle of sober-up potion into his hand and grabbed Remus' wrist, pulling him toward the kitchen and all but shoving him into a chair.
"I'm fine," Remus tried to tell Hermione, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Remus, you are lucky I'm nine months pregnant and can't throttle the both of you!" Lily shouted. "Shut up and let Hermione heal you so we can have a proper conversation!"
Hermione appreciated that Lily was just as angry as she was, probably even moreso given that she and Marlene had been friends for years. Hermione was positively seething. Not only did Sirius make a complete arse of himself at a funeral, but he was hanging on to this ridiculous notion that everything that had happened was somehow Remus' fault. She was going to put an end to this blame game and set the record straight. They had too many things to worry about that didn't include her boyfriend and his best friend at each other's bloody throats! Not to mention Lily was due to have the baby- Harry- in a few short weeks. She didn't need the stress of everyone in her life being at odds with one another, either.
Hermione waved her wand without warning, feeling marginally bad at the wince that came from Remus when his nose healed with a rough snapping sound. She summoned her bag from the spare room and began digging through it, pulling out a mild pain relief potion, a topical healing salve, and bruise paste. She uncorked the potion, handing it to Remus and waved her wand over his face, muttering a cleansing charm before she unscrewed the lid to the tin of healing salve and began to gingerly apply it to his busted lip.
"You don't have to do this, Hermione, I'm fine."
"Shut up," Hermione snapped, arching an eyebrow and giving him a pointed look. "Or if you'd like, I can place you under a silencing charm as well?"
Hermione saw his eyes flash to gold, the slight, angry flare of his nostrils and the way he tensed his jaw. But he snapped his mouth shut and let her apply the salve and paste in silence.
"James," she called, over her shoulder. "Are you okay? Do you need a pain relief potion?"
"No, I'm fine. Bits and berries are in one piece."
Hermione let out a sort of laughter and shook her head, "Thank Merlin for that."
"Yes," Lily said, very seriously. "Yes. We will thank Merlin for that."
At this, Remus and Hermione both chuckled a bit and she could feel the tension ebb from the room. Once she was finished patching up Remus, she moved to the living room where Sirius sat, in her favorite armchair. He glared angrily at her when she waved her wand, cleaning the blood from his face and put the bruise paste on the angry purple bruise that had begun to develop on his jaw.
"Did you take the sober-up?" she asked.
Sirius rolled his eyes, handing her back the empty phial. Hermione took it from him and vanished the small tube, waving her wand again to release the silencing charm.
"Before you open your very stupid mouth, you're going to listen to what I have to say, is that understood?"
His eyes narrowed at her, but he nodded.
"Good. Now, that sober-up potion has a mild pain relief in it. That is the only pain relief potion you will be receiving from me. You deserve the hangover that I'm certain is beginning to give you a headache." She closed the tin of bruise paste and straightened herself out, tugging on the sleeves of her dress and smoothing the skirt. "Remus, get in here."
With impressive speed, Remus had moved into the living room, taking a seat on the couch next to Lily and James.
"Now," Hermione began. "This squabbling, this ends now. There is too much to worry about to be fighting amongst ourselves. This is how people get killed, do you understand me?"
"Yes." Remus and James said in unison.
Hermione turned to Sirius, who sighed in defeat. "Yes, Ma'am."
"What happened was terrible. James being captured was terrifying, I know this. But James isn't blaming Remus, you are. You are borrowing anger that is not yours to have. I am sorry that you were Imperiused, Sirius. I'm sorry you were forced to do those things. But I need to make something very clear, and you are not going to like it."
She took a breath, waiting to see if Sirius would object, but as promised, he remained quiet.
"Marlene was dying by the time we got there. Her magical core had been almost completely drained, do you understand that? Whether you were forced to put her under Crucio for five minutes, or five days, it would not have drained her magic to the level that it was. The fact that she made it here alive, is nothing short of a miracle. She should have died days before she did."
The pain that twisted Sirius' face was heartbreaking, and Hermione felt her anger dissipate, her breath hitched in her chest. She looked away from him, for fear that her stern resolve would completely crumble. He needed to hear these things. He had been forced to do something horrible to someone he cared about. The Death Eaters had turned him into the person he had spent his life terrified of becoming.
When she turned to face James, Remus, and Lily, she instantly regretted it. Lily had large tears rolling down her cheeks as she buried her face into James' chest. James and Remus shared a look of agonized guilt as they looked at Sirius. She took in a slow breath, far shakier than she would have liked.
"You two need to stop blaming yourselves as well."
"I… I told Moony we needed to split up, to cover more ground. He didn't want to. He fought me on it. I argued with him like when we were in school, Pads, when we would piss him off enough that he'd finally agree to do our Herbology essays if it got us to shut up… I'm the reason you were… It wasn't Remus' fault." James said, clearing his throat as he pulled his glasses from his face, wiping a lens on the hem of his shirt before returning them back to his face.
"Padfoot is right though," Remus whispered. "I shouldn't have given in. I shouldn't have let you go on your own… And…" He leaned forward to look around James at Lily, "I'm sorry, Lils. I'm so sorry."
Lily laughed, a sound that was thick with emotion as she took some effort to push up from the sofa. James pushed her up by the elbow and she gave him a small smile, stepping to the end of the sofa to lean down, wrapping Remus in a tight hug. "I forgive you, Remus. I never blamed you, I never blamed any of you. But…" She pulled away from him and gave James a stern look. "No more missions. I'm sorry, I know you're tired of being home, doing nothing, but James, I can't… I won't raise this child on my own."
"No more missions." James promised.
Hermione turned back to Sirius to see that his eyes were red-rimmed and his cheeks wet with fresh tears that had silently fallen while she had her back turned to him. She crouched down in front of him and pulled him to her, tears of her own finally breaking free when she felt his shoulders sag, his chest shaking as he cried into her shoulder.
"And you have to stop drinking yourself into an early grave, okay?" Hermione whispered. "I know it's hard, I know it hurts, but you can't go killing yourself okay?"
"Okay," Sirius said, squeezing her tightly. "I'm sorry."
"I know you are, but I'm not the one you need to apologize to."
"I know," he whispered, his breath hot against the side of her face.
After a few more moments, Sirius disentangled himself from the embrace, wiping at his face with his hand and clearing his throat. Hermione stood up to give him some space as he got up and crossed the room. He held a hand out to Remus, who looked up at him with an arched brow.
"Moony, I'm…"
"Like pulling teeth to get you to say it, isn't it?" Lily said, no bitterness to her tone but a bit of amusement there, instead.
Sirius cleared his throat again, "I'm sorry, Remus. I shouldn't have… I just…"
"I know," Remus said, standing up and grasping Sirius' hand. "Me too."
Wednesday, July 2, 1980
Hermione stared up at the clock, a long forgotten book of potion theory in her lap. The day after Marlene's funeral, she had been shocked when Dumbledore showed up on her doorstep. He was alone and she couldn't remember ever seeing him look so exhausted before. He had asked for entrance and a place to speak to Remus in private. Her stomach had dropped, her throat constricting uncomfortably as she gave him a stiff nod, moving to the side to allow the Headmaster into her home.
Not even ten minutes later, Remus was leaving with Dumbledore to go on an assignment, alone. He had pressed a swift kiss to her forehead and told her there was a batch of ginger shortbread in the oven for Lily, and that it needed to be taken out in four minutes. She had laughed and nodded, asking when he would return.
"After the moon," he said.
When the door closed behind them and she heard the distinct pop of apparition, she had dissolved into tears. Completely forgetting Lily's ginger shortbread in the oven and burning them to a crisp.
It was starting, now. He would be going out to infiltrate werewolf dens, stepping inside of compounds where he was not welcome. She had eased a bit of the worry by taking tea with his mum two days ago, Hope of course, had no knowledge of what Remus was doing. Hermione had not given her any information to suggest that her only child was off with a less than friendly pack of werewolves.
During her visit to Hope, she had told her that Remus had moved into her cottage with her. Hope had been surprised, with their relationship being so new, but she had been thrilled with the prospect of it. She regaled Hermione with the story of how she and Lyall came to be husband and wife and fed her sweets until she was sick. Spending time with Hope, one on one, had shown her a glimpse into Remus' upbringing and she better understood his awkward and quiet nature.
Hope was talkative, in the way Remus was talkative. Only opening up once she felt comfortable. Hermione found it strangely gratifying that the woman took to her so quickly, and they were able to talk about literature and music. It seemed that Remus had got his love of The Beatles from his mother, the same way she had learned to love them from her father.
After a few hours, Hope explained that she was worried for Remus. Had been afraid he would never lead any semblance of a normal life and seeing him with Hermione had given her some hope that he would eventually stop seeing himself as an evil being, and be able to live a life with children and a wife. She had given Hermione a pointed look, a coy smile and then shifted the conversation into something resembling the exchanging of pleasantries as she politely ended the visit.
For two days now, when she wasn't sick with worry for Remus, all she could think about was that conversation with his mother. And how she believed, just as much as Hope did, that Remus deserved all the things the woman wanted for her son. And that she wanted more than anything to be able to be the one to give them to him.
The clock on the wall chimed, signalling that it was noon. Precisely midday and Hermione had done nothing but wallow in pity and fear for a man that she loved, that wasn't hers to love. In truth, she had known their relationship had escalated rather quickly, despite the slow start of it. But she was never meant to be involved this deeply in the first place. She was supposed to just come here and gather information, find out what the final ingredients were for the potion that would hopefully stop her from turning into a soul sucking monster.
Instead, she had discovered that the entire basis of her plan had been horribly misinterpreted and decided to stay anyway, to satiate some twisted idea of a life she was never given, a life she would never have again.
She sighed, closing her eyes and rolling her shoulders in a futile attempt to loosen the stiff muscles in her neck. Her head fell back against the cushion of the chair and she took several more deep breaths.
It wasn't the love of Remus himself that she regretted. It was that she had allowed herself to get so emotionally involved in the first place. With an annoyed sigh, she realized this was not the first time she let these emotions get in the way at a very inopportune time, if her hasty relationship with Ron proved anything.
"Get it together, Hermione." She groaned, scrubbing her face with her hands and shoving her hair from her forehead.
"Talking to yourself in third person now, are you?"
Hermione yelped in surprise, scrambling from the chair and nearly tackling Remus to the ground as she wrapped her arms around him. He smelled of dirt and sweat and his clothes were nearly shredded, but she clung to him anyway, her fingers pressing hard into his back.
Remus chuckled, winding his arms around her and bending a bit to press his lips into her hair, taking a long breath through his nose and tightening his hold on her.
"I really don't want to move, but if I don't take a shower you may find you don't want to hug me much longer," he said.
Hermione laughed, stepping away from him and looking him over. He seemed… okay..? He wasn't bruised or bleeding, what scars were visible on him were the ones he had left with, no new blemishes to his skin. He was right in the sense that he was in desperate need of a shower and a shave, but otherwise, he seemed rather unscathed.
"Go wash up, when you're finished, we can talk." Hermione said, "I'll go over to Lily's and let them know you've made it back okay."
Remus nodded with a small smile and pressed another kiss to the top of her head before heading toward the back of the small house. Quickly, Hermione pulled her trainers on, twisting her hair into a bun and sticking her wand through it to hold it in place. She jogged over to Lily and James' cottage and opened the door, the sound of Sirius laughing hysterically as James pleaded with Lily filled her ears.
On the floor in the corner of the room by one of the larger potted ferns, Lily sat with her arms crossed over her chest. A look on her face that Hermione could only describe as petulant as Lily raised her eyebrows at James in disbelief.
"I only thought you would need help! I didn't mean to offend you, Lily!"
"I am not helpless! I can get off the floor by myself, thank you very much!"
"You have trouble getting out of the bed on your own!" James snapped back, "The floor is considerably lower than our bed!"
"Oh fuck, Prongs. You just keep digging your grave!" Sirius said, nearing hysterics with his laughter.
"Shut up, Padfoot!" James said.
"What… What is going on?" Hermione asked, arching an eyebrow and looking around at the scene.
"James suggested that because of my size I may need help getting off the floor!" Lily hissed.
"I didn't- I mean… That's not what I meant! I just meant that I know things are harder to do now with you being so… pregnant!"
Sirius wailed, slapping his knees and wiping his eyes as he choked on his laughter. The look on Lily's face was nothing short of homicidal and Hermione couldn't help the smirk that pulled at the corner of her lips as she bit back her own laughter.
"Hermione, could you… Could you help me out, here?!" James cried.
Hermione let out a bark of laughter, "Oh absolutely not. You deal with the ramifications of your words on your own, James Potter."
"Fat lot of good you are!" James grumbled.
"While you grovel to your wife," Hermione said, giggling a bit as she spoke. "I came over to let you know that Remus just got in."
The shift in the air was palpable as James straightened up from his bent position and looked at her, holding his breath.
"He's fine," Hermione said. "Perfectly fine, excluding the odor. He's taking a shower now."
"Did he say what he was doing?" Sirius asked.
"Where was he?" Lily questioned.
"I don't know," Hermione said, "We haven't talked yet. I just wanted to let you all know he's safe."
"Dinner tonight?" James asked. "I'll make a roast and-
"Don't be stupid James," Lily said. "She hasn't seen him in days. I don't think she wants to eat roast with us tonight."
Hermione laughed, "Tomorrow?"
James scrunched his face up, but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, we'll have dinner tomorrow, then."
Hermione smiled bidding them farewell and leaving the cottage, nearly sprinting back to her own to get back to Remus.
.
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a/n: I know this one was a bit of a quicker read, sorry about that! Either way, I hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a review and let me know!
xo
