Chapter 68: Monday, March 23, 1981

"You must remember...the most important rule of any successful illusion: the people must want to believe it."

-Libba Bray


Hermione watched the sun come up, blinking heavily over the rim of her favourite mug as she sipped her favourite hot chocolate and espresso, wearing her favourite comfortable pyjamas, listening to her favourite Beatles song sing from the record player. The layers of false comfort she had surrounded herself in over the course of the last few hours made no difference to her mood, however, and she sighed.

She had been up all night, hoping Remus would come back home. Waiting for him to walk through the door so she could talk to him, tell him that she was sorry and that she really, truly did love him— without stipulations. That she would figure out a way to rid herself of the curse and if that didn't work, then she would go back 2001, only to fulfill the vow, and then come straight back home. Because this was her home, now.

She missed Harry, Ron, Draco, Ginny, Blaise…she missed everyone, the entire pseudo-family she had come so close to. But, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had been living almost two years without them. She didn't know what would happen if she left for good, would she just disappear and dissolve from their minds? It didn't matter, though. She had already proven she could move on without them, that she could bury away the sting she felt when she thought of them, and even make new memories with some of them. But Remus?

If she went back, there would be no more Remus. There would be no opportunity for new memories with him, nothing to build upon or to mourn. In her time, he had already been dead for years, to mourn him again, properly this time, would take time she didn't have. She didn't want to learn how to live without him. She would rather spend her last days wrapped in his arms, his off-key humming in her ear and his baked goods in her belly.

His breath ghosting across her face as he whispered endless 'I love you's'.

She sniffled and wiped the tears that had begun to leak from her eyes, again, and sipped at her espresso. It was still too early to go over to Lily and James' home, but she was itching to try and find him. She knew that Lily would be upset, however, if she barged in and woke Harry. Instead, Hermione moved to the sink and dumped out the rest of the liquid in her mug before heading to her room to get changed.

She would go to Sirius.

Chances were slim that he was awake, or sober, at this hour. But, he wouldn't be upset with her for coming over, and Remus had been incensed at Sirius last night. Hermione figured the chances of him pounding on Sirius' door at two this morning were probably pretty high, and she made the decision to pack her medical bag with her— just in case.

Her feet hit the uneven pavement of the footpath outside of the rundown building that housed Sirius' flat. When she entered, she grumbled in irritation at the broken lift and made her way to the stairwell, climbing flight after flight of steps until finally reaching the eighth floor. She pushed open the door that led to the corridor and walked down the dingy path of filthy carpet before reaching the door marked 8G. The "G" was broken, hanging upside down by one of it's fastens and Hermione looked over her shoulder, pulled out her wand and fixed the letter to the door with a sticking charm. She knocked, tentatively at first, and then with more urgency when she heard no response.

"Sirius?" She called, pounding the side of her fist against the wood. "Sirius, are you home?"

"Oi! I'm coming, you nutter!" Sirius called from inside.

Hermione sighed in relief, she would have felt like a fool if he wasn't home and had stayed at James and Lily's as he did a few nights a week, anyway. Finally, the door creaked open and an exhausted looking Sirius appeared before her. Shirtless and hair disheveled from sleep, he scratched his fingers across his chest and a cocky grin pulled his mouth to the side when his eyes focused on her.

"Good morning kitten, can I help you?"

"Let me in!" Hermione said, rolling her eyes as she pushed past him. "Have you seen Remus? He didn't come home last night and I— Oh. I didn't realize you had, um, company. I can come back…"

There was a woman sprawled out and fast asleep on the lumpy futon Sirius had shoved in the corner of the room. She was nude and Hermione was thankful that she was laying on her stomach. She snored lightly, her hand draped over the side of the bed, fingers dangling just above the floor.

"Nah, I'll have her leave." Sirius said, "They usually don't stay the night anyway. I must've been really drunk last night if I let her stay."

"That's...awful, Sirius. You know that, don't you?"

He gave a shrug and stepped over toward the futon, "Hey! Erm...shit. I can't remember her name...erm...Bets...Beck...Bert…"

"Bethany," Hermione hissed, picking up the bag that was on the counter and looking through it to find some form of identification.

Sirius snapped his fingers, "That's it! Bethany! Oi, Bethany, get up. You need to go home, love. My sister is here and I need to talk to her."

"Your sister?"

"Tends to do a lot better than my best mate's girlfriend is here looking for her boyfriend, plus you're like Lily, aren't you? So basically, my sister." Sirius said over his shoulder as he gave Bethany a gentle shake to her shoulders. "Oi, come on love, wakey wakey."

The woman—Bethany—groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes and combing her fingers through her hair. "Wha' time issit?"

"Er, I don't— kitten, what time is it?" Sirius asked.

"Half five."

"Half five—Merlin, you came to my flat this early in the morning? You must be worried. All right, that's it love, up you go."

Bethany pulled herself from the sheets and Hermione spun around, facing the opposite wall as the girl located her clothes and quickly dressed herself. She thanked Hermione when she handed Bethany her bag and stopped in front of the door to give Sirius a rather filthy kiss, considering the early hour. She finally detached herself from Sirius' tonsils, she gave a sheepish wave to Hermione and made Sirius promise to call her.

"Bit early to be diving your tongue so deep down a throat, isn't it?" Hermione mused, casting a cleaning charm on futon before sitting on the edge.

"As if you and Moony never kiss first thing in the morning," Sirius said, rolling his eyes.

"We do, but there's breath freshening charms involved and—"

"I know. That's my charm. Have you ever caught a whiff of his breath the morning after a transformation? It could kill a dragon. I created that charm fifth year to help him, and I casted it on Bessie—"

"—Bethany."

"—Whatever, the minute she stepped foot in my flat. No one wants to wake up to a face full of bad breath after a night of what I assume was at least decent sex."

"You assume?"

He shrugged and moved toward the tiny kitchenette to put a kettle on. "Don't remember it, do I? Bet our girl Brenda—"

"—Bethany."

"—Whatever. Bet she does, though."

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head at his absolute lackadaisical attitude toward his own promiscuity. "Charming."

Sirius barked out a laugh and pulled the kettle from the hob as it whined. He set about fixing them each a cuppa and carried them into the main room, taking a seat next to her.

"So, what's happened between you and Moony?"

"Why do you think something happened?"

"Well, you've come to my flat once before now, and it wasn't the greatest circumstances, but as you can see, I am in perfect working order today. So, I can only assume you and Moony had an argument or something if you've come here looking for him."

"This is what you call 'perfect working order'?" Hermione asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow as she looked pointedly around his flat. She shifted and her hand came across a scrap of pink, scratchy, lacy material and held it out between her thumb and forefinger, her face pinched in disgust.

Sirius smirked, snatching the knickers from her hand and tossing them in a basket in the corner of the room. "You're avoiding the question."

Hermione quickly cleaned her hands with her wand and sighed, running her finger around the edge of the mug, "We had a fight. He...I told him everything."

"You told him...oh. Oh. And he didn't take it well?"

"Not in the slightest," Hermione said, shaking her head. "I let slip that you knew about the curse, and he was furious."

"Oh great, thanks for that kitten! Exactly what I need, neighborhood werewolf on my arse!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to it just—"

"I'm just taking the mickey," Sirius said. "It's okay. I expected he would know eventually. So, you thought he'd come here and confront me, then?"

She nodded, "I thought he might."

"Haven't seen him, Hermione." Sirius said, "I'm sorry kitten, but he hasn't been here. Did you try Prongs and Lily?"

"Not yet," Hermione admitted.

"Probably wise, I can't imagine they'd be thrilled to have you beating down their door at sunrise. What about his dad?"

"I was going to send him a letter if Remus isn't with James and Lily. I thought about just popping over, I've only seen him twice since Hope…" Hermione trailed off and gave her head a small shake, it wasn't the time to feel guilty for that as well. She had enough remorse and culpability on her plate as it was, it wouldn't do to pile more on, now. "Anyway, I didn't want to upset him or make him think there was any cause for alarm."

"You could check Yorkshire."

"Yorkshire? What's in Yorkshire?"

Sirius took a gulp of his tea before responding, "His grandad owned a cabin there, I think he left it to Lyall when he died, but Remus might have gone there to get some quiet time."

"You talk as if you aren't worried. I just told you we've had a row and I can't find him and...why aren't you worried?"

"Hermione, I've known Remus half my life, now. This is what he does. Let me guess, he's said some really unfair sounding things to counter your arguments? Things that left you feeling really shitty about what you did or said, and then he walked away, with barely a word."

Hermione's nod was almost imperceptible, but it was not unnoticed by Sirius.

They sat in silence that was just as heavy as the reticence that pressed against her in her own home. The walls of Sirius' small flat seemed to be closing in on her, compressing from every side in a slow strangulation of her lungs. Sirius was right. The way Remus held himself, the absolute intense dislike of who he was, what he was, always simmering just below the surface. Of course, he would have a pattern once it had finally bubbled over. And that's all this was, wasn't it? Just Remus' own self-doubt consuming him. His hurt at the situation and his fear of losing Hermione had just compounded and he needed some time to himself to put the fragile pieces of his already rickety soul back together before he came home.

But then…

The words he had said to her had been reverberating around her head for hours and they were deafening against the backdrop of the oppressive silence of the dingy flat.

You'll leave me behind...taking the best fucking years of my life away from me...drain the waters of the earth...you are so damn beautiful, I fucking missed you.

...and you're a spade.

Her eyes began to burn with tears again and she realized that while Remus may have a pattern of taking some time—'I need some time to think…'—this felt like more than his usual brand of self depreciation. This wasn't Remus upset about something that had happened to him that was so far out of his control, but he blamed himself anyway.

No, this was Remus being upset because Hermione had hurt him. She had come clean about the mountains of lies she had buried him under over the course of the last eighteen months; unraveled the intricately spindled web she had wrapped around herself. She had broken his trust, and then to make matters even worse, she had admitted that she had no plans on rectifying it. No, she wouldn't try to soothe the wound and make it better. Instead, she would just remove it altogether!

I never have a choice of any part of my life...I didn't even choose you…

"Did he even want me?" Hermione asked on the end of a breath, a flutter of a whisper.

Sirius straightened, his shoulders pulling back and the slight curve of his spine smoothing to be perfectly perpendicular to the lumpy futon mattress they were sat upon. The question had caught him off guard, that much was obvious to Hermione.

"What are you talking about?"

"He said he didn't get to choose—Moony made the choice for him. Did he not want me at all, at the beginning?"

"Don't be stupid, he loves you."

"I know he does, now. But he didn't—"

"He knew the moment he saw you, did he tell you that?" Sirius waited for her to answer before he smirked and shook his head, "No, I didn't think so. The second you fell into our lives, he was enamoured by you. Doesn't matter that Moony picked up on your pheromones or whatever the hell it is that makes him claim you as a mate, Remus saw you and Remus fell in love with you right there in Doe's dining room."

"I don't think this is the usual thing, Sirius." Hermione admitted, her stomach knotting uncomfortably around the tea she had managed to sip down. "I'm worried."

"We'll find him. It's not as if he's got a lot of places to hide out in, give him time."

Hermione nodded, but gnawed on her bottom lip, anyway. Sirius gave the top of her thigh a pat before jumping to his feet and rummaging around for a shirt.

"Besides, lost dogs always find their way home, don't they? He may be a wolf but canine instinct is canine instinct, innit? Now, let's go for breakfast before this hangover settles in. I could use a fry up."


Thursday, April 2, 1981

Hermione tapped her fingers nervously against the table, her head on a constant swivel as Order members made their way into the dining room. She forced a smile at a tiny Percy, who was hiding from his older brothers behind an old coat rack, and pulled herself out of her nervous twitching and back to Earth.

It had been two weeks since their argument. Since she had taken everything and dumped it out into the open and then stomped all over Remus' heart and made him feel as if he didn't matter. As if her love for him was insignificant and conditional. That night had played on repeat in her head so many times now, that she had lost count.

And no one had seen him.

She had, of course, checked James and Lily's immediately after she and Sirius had breakfast the morning she went to his flat. Lily was instantly concerned, James gave a similar response as Sirius had—although he suggested that perhaps Remus and Peter had gone off somewhere together. Peter had apparently left rather abruptly that night, with a flimsy excuse and no details on where he would be staying. James and Lily hadn't seen Peter since, either.

Hermione had entertained the idea, maybe he had gone off with Peter? But she had no idea where Peter lived and James and Sirius said his parents had been moved for protection, and neither of them knew where to.

With the idea still rolling around in her mind, she had made her way to Wales to visit Lyall in the hopes that Remus had decided to go home for a few days. She had afternoon tea with him, talked about his time at the Ministry as a Boggart Specialist, he offered some interesting points of view to the Dementors and how the Ministry could gain control of them. It was clear Lyall missed his wife, missed the company of another, really, and was overjoyed to be able to spend some time talking to Hermione. However, he had not seen Remus in quite some time. Hermione asked him about the cabin in Yorkshire, and was met with a grunt of disapproval before explaining that it was a possibility, but he didn't think Remus would go there.

She spent the night in Banchory, Upper Flagely, Tinworth…anywhere she knew Remus had traveled recently outside of Godric's Hollow and Caerphilly. She even sent a letter to Dumbledore, checked St. Mungo's roster and made a floo-call to Poppy Pomfrey…

No one had seen or heard from Remus.

Tonight would be the last night of lying in wait. No one could tell her where he was, Dumbledore had yet to respond to any message she sent, and Peter had yet to come back from where he was at—which would have been her last source to exhaust. If Remus was not at the meeting tonight, she would make a trip to the Ministry in the morning and put in her request for an International Portkey and she would begin searching the communities that she remembered Remus was welcome.

She listened to the chatter as the room filled up, a larger number of people than what usually joined them at their weekly meetings, but all friendly faces nonetheless. There was a round of laughter and questioning congratulations when Arthur announced that Molly was pregnant again.

"It's a girl this time, she said she just knows it…but she's said that with the last four, so I'm not sure her intuition is quite right with that." Arthur joked, a bright smile on his face while he talked to Emmaline and Dorcas.

Hermione wanted to smile and be happy for them. Especially knowing that they would finally get their girl—even if Ginny would grow to give all six of her brothers a run for their money. But, as more well wishing Order members entered the room, her stomach twisted painfully. Remus was not going to be at this meeting and the longer she sat here, acting as a glorified scribe, the longer Remus went on his own. She needed to get to him, to tell him she would stay, she would come back the second her vow was fulfilled and live her remaining days with him, if he was still willing to have her.

When Mad-Eye burst into the room, going on about some disappearance or another, Hermione nearly missed the flutter to her left. She turned in her seat to see Peter pulling out a chair, a sheepish smile on his face as he took the spot next to her.

"Sorry. Have I missed much?"

Hermione's heart thundered against her ribs. Finally, someone who might know something, who might be able to help! Peter was constantly out on long term assignments, surveying and gathering information of critical members of the Death Eaters, people who were at the top of the Dark Arts food chain but had yet to make waves—the Notts, the Burkes, the MacNairs...constantly observing and reporting back his findings. Because of this, Peter knew every nook and cranny of Britain, so there was a good chance he would have been able to offer Remus a place to stay, a safe house for a while as he tried to work through his feelings.

"Not from what I can tell," Hermione whispered, a beaming smile on her face.

Peter gave her a strange look but then nodded, turning his attention back to Mad Eye.

The meeting moved too slowly for Hermione's liking, but despite her anxiousness to talk to Peter, she found herself wrapped in the horrors that Moody had brought to the table. Inferi had been sighted in several areas now, causing mass hysteria amongst the Wizarding Community. The Aurors had tried to keep a tight lid on the situation, but the Daily Prophet had managed to catch wind and begun printing articles that disparaged the efforts of the Ministry to keep the Wizarding World safe.

The war was coming to a tipping point and people were choosing sides faster than the Order could make a case for themselves. Fear was in the eyes of every person in the room and every person on the street. The false promises that the Death Eaters spewed, the vile lies they continued to infect the weaker minds with, spread like wildfire. Their numbers grew by the day while the Order remained stagnant.

After an hour and a half, Mad Eye released them all from his clutches and the room began to clear. The sounds of wooden chairs scraping against the floor and hushed whispers while everyone reviewed the information they had just received. Hermione finished logging her notes from the meeting and quickly made her way through the house, following behind Peter as he made his way outside.

"Peter!"

He turned on his heel, his brow pulled together in confusion. "Yeah?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"Er—yeah. Yeah, I guess."

Hermione offered a kind smile, which was returned with a strained pull of Peter's lips. "I was just wondering if you have heard from Remus at all? James and Lily mentioned that you left the house rather abruptly a couple of weeks ago and—"

"No," Peter said, interrupting her. "Sorry, but no, I haven't heard from him. Is everything all right?"

Hermione sighed and closed her eyes, swallowing around the lump that had lodged in her throat since their argument. "We had an argument," she answered, "He got rather upset and said he needed some time to think, but it's been a fortnight and I haven't heard from him. I'm worried."

Peter's face pinched in thought, "I can't see Remus leaving for that long because of a row. A day or two maybe, but not weeks. Did you try his parents?"

Hermione nodded and went through the list of all of her failed attempts to reach Remus. Finally, Peter nodded, shifting on his feet.

"You have parchment and a quill?"

"I've got a journal and a fountain pen."

The right corner of Peter's mouth lifted in a smile, "That'll do."

She offered him a blank page in her journal and handed him her gold pen. He scribbled down a series of numbers and handed it back to her.

"Check there," he said. "It's a domestic community of werewolves that are living outside of Death Eater rule. He might have made his way to them."

Gratitude bloomed in her chest, "Thank you!"

Peter gave a terse nod before stepping down the footpath and disappeared in a whirl of color and a popping sound. Had she been paying closer attention, she may have noticed the way he gripped his left arm just before he apparated.

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a/n: Hey everyone! Again, I bring you some of my favorite interactions with Sirius. I was cackling when I wrote that bit, so I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know your thoughts?

xo