Chapter 114: Monday, October 21, 2002

"Battle not with monsters, lest you yourself become a monster."

-Freidrich Nietzsche


The weather in Yorkshire was dreadful. The sky, already darkened despite the mid-afternoon hour, was grey with clouds. A misty drizzle coated Hermione's skin, clinging to her hair and freezing her down to her bones. The ground squelched beneath her boots with every step, thick mud coating the soles and leaving a path behind them. Pansy huffed, annoyed, as she spelled her hair dry again and Remus lingered back a few paces, slowly trudging up the hill.

"Remind me again why I'm here instead of in a warm, dry house?" Pansy grumbled.

"To help me keep Remus within the wards we set up this morning," Hermione sighed.

"Right. Even though you're certain he won't attack you?"

"It's just a precaution. He won't attack you as long as you're in animagus form. So, if he veers too far out of sight, you'll need to lead him closer to the cabin," Hermione explained, again.

"This is unnecessary." Remus said, quietly, "I can transform in the shed, I'll be fine on my own."

Hermione stopped, giving Pansy a look that asked her to continue on. Pansy rolled her eyes but jogged ahead, anyway.

Hermione turned around just as Remus walked directly into her, setting her off balance. He looked up from the ground with a frown and grasped her arm to steady her before immediately dropping his hand back to his side.

They had barely spoken two words to each other in the day they'd been back since rescuing Tonks. Since Seamus died, her mind unhelpfully supplied. Remus had seemed content on leaving himself locked in the attic, living in his own head. It wasn't until after Hermione and Harry had returned from setting the wards earlier that morning that Remus would let her into the room, let alone look at her.

"Stop."

Remus' brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione beat him to it. "I mean it, Remus. Stop. You can't keep blaming yourself and it certainly isn't going to help if you tear yourself apart tonight because of it."

"Hermione, it was my—"

"I was there, too," she cut in. "I saw him dueling not far off and when he came over to see what was happening, I pointed it out. I brought his attention to Dolohov. Do you blame me?"

His tongue darted out to wet his lips and he shook his head, "No. No, of course I don't."

"Then stop blaming yourself! We are at war, Remus. People die. And it's terrible every single time and I know you know that."

"I know."

"So, stop shouldering all the weight of it!" Hermione snapped, exasperated. "I know you feel guilty. I know you're always going to find a way to blame yourself but...God, Remus! This isn't about you!"

Remus stuffed his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I never said it was."

"Well, you're acting like it! What happened to Seamus was ghastly. It was horrible. But, unfortunately, he is not the only person we have lost due to preventable mistakes. The Order is not infallible, Remus. You know this better than most. Look at how we met—a mistake brought me to you. A hunch. And I was completely wrong."

Hermione stared at Remus, waiting for him to say something, to try and prove her wrong. His eyes stayed low, staring at the ground as he chewed the inside of his cheek. His shoulders were slumped forward and Hermione nearly laughed at the urge to remind him to straighten his posture so that his back wouldn't hurt. The way he looked now, so uncertain of himself, stripped of the miniscule bit of confidence he had gained in the past few years...he looked heartbreakingly close to the meek, withdrawn Remus she had first met in 1979.

She hated it.

Hermione took in a slow, deep breath. In her frustration, she had stepped back several paces and she rectified that, moving forward to wrap her arms around his waist. She felt his body stiffen and she squeezed tighter until he finally returned the embrace.

"I love you," she mumbled into his coat. "And I don't want to see you bleeding in the morning because you let Moony tear you to pieces."

"I would deserve it," he whispered.

Hermione shook her head, "No one deserves that, Remus. Least of all, you."

"How do you do this?" Remus asked, removing himself from her arms and shoving a hand through his hair.

"Do what?"

He sniffled, shaking his head and looking up toward the sky as if it held the answer to his question. "Think the best of me when I continue to only show you the worst."

Hermione drew in another deep breath, "I spent two years lying to you. To everyone. I brewed a memory potion with the intention of tricking you into taking it. I put countless lives in danger because I misinterpreted the ingredients for a potion—"

"Hermione—"

"—I knew James and Lily were going to die. I knew Sirius would rot in Azkaban for years and never live to see his freedom. I knew Peter was the spy—"

"That isn't fair, Hermione! You had to do those—"

"And even now," she pressed on, ignoring him. "Even now, I continue to put you in harm's way knowing that you aren't supposed to be here. Knowing that with every day you're here, it could be catastrophic. And I don't even care! Because I love you, and I can't function properly without you. Because while you only see the worst in yourself, you see the best in me, too. And then sometimes I can see it."

The wind blew around them, whistling through the trees and Hermione knew the wetness of her cheeks was not from the rain.

"Maybe I'm selfish and Merlin knows I can be stubborn in my views but, I just want you to see yourself the same way I see you." She stepped back and lifted a hand to his face, feeling the stubble of his jaw beneath her palm, "You can beat yourself down and lie to yourself constantly. Convince yourself that you're this...this monster!" She pulled her hand back to wave it frantically at him, "But if you're a monster, Remus, then so am I."

He stared at her, his lips pressed into a tight line. His nostrils flared with every deep intake of breath. Finally, he spoke, a whisper of words barely audible above the rain that had started to pour steadily down.

"My greatest fear is that one day you will take off those rose tinted glasses and realize that I am the reason that everything has become so monumentally fucked up."

Hermione blinked, her brows creased as she met his gaze. She was angry. Did he not understand what she was trying to tell him? He wasn't the only person at fault for what happened to Seamus—let alone James, Lily or Sirius. He had taken on the weight of her own errors and poor judgement and held her up on some sort of pedestal. He was openly accepting the heartbreak that came along with being here and being with her while thinking he was worth nothing. And now it felt like he was sabotaging himself, their relationship, everything he could reach. All because he was drowning in a sea of misplaced guilt and uncertainty.

An incredulous puff of laughter slipped past her lips and she shook her head, "You give yourself far too much credit. The world is not on fire around us because of you."

"No," Remus agreed. "I just keep helping to fan the flames."

With that, he gave Hermione another long, sad look before brushing past her, continuing on toward the cabin.


A tapping on the window alerted Hermione to Pansy's return. She pulled herself up from the hard, wooden chair she sat in and flipped the latch open, pushing the window open a few inches to allow the small bird entrance before closing it and setting the lock.

Pansy shook out her feathers on the counter before hopping off and shifting back into her human body. Hermione gave her a pointed look as she mopped up the water from the countertop and Pansy gave a shrug, pulling a chair out from the table and falling into it.

"He was chasing a rabbit," Pansy announced, without any preamble. "But, he's well within the wards."

Hermione hummed in acknowledgment, pouring a cup of tea from the tray on the table and sliding it over to Pansy. "It's been a long time since he's allowed the wolf to run like this. I'm sure he's thrilled."

"You talk about him like he's an entirely different person."

"I think he is," Hermione shrugged.

"Is that why Lupin is always muttering to himself like a nutter?"

Hermione chuckled, "He's not as good at hiding it as he thinks he is."

Hermione looked back down to the book she had opened before Pansy returned. She was researching different types of magical cartography, trying to find a way to link the Order members to the map Remus had been working on. So far, everything had come up dry. But, she knew very little about magical maps so the reading was at least informative.

Nearly half an hour had passed and Hermione was reading a particularly interesting article on the merits of using topographical maps in conjunction with thermal charm work when Pansy interrupted her with a loud sigh.

"So…?"

Hermione marked her place on the article and looked up, "So?"

"Bit of an argument earlier."

"It wasn't an argument," Hermione said.

"Wasn't it? You both looked pretty upset when you came in and then didn't speak a word to one another until he got ready to go out."

Hermione shrugged, "Wasn't an argument."

From outside, she can hear Moony whine. Now that he's either caught or lost the rabbit he had been chasing, he'd come back to the cabin. To check on his mate, to see why Hermione insists on keeping tucked inside instead on the grass with him.

"Sounds like even the wolf knows it was an argument," Pansy muttered, taking a long sip of her tea and looking at Hermione over the rim of the mug.

Hermione sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. Her hands stilled as she gathered her hair, mid-air. The sense of dejavu for the last time she sat across the table from a Slytherin with a curtain of black hair and a sarcastic undertone, almost crushing her. She blinked a few times, clearing the strange memory of Severus Snape away as she stuck her wand through the twist on her head in an attempt to keep it in place.

"If you have something to say, I'd prefer you just come out with it," Hermione said, exhaustion from the late hour and the last several days settling over her.

"I like Lupin, probably more than I like you, if we're being honest—"

"Lovely."

"—But, I overheard what you said earlier. About not caring…"

"You eavesdropped, you mean."

Pansy smirked, "It's easy to ignore a bird when it's in the sky."

"What's your point?"

"My point," Pansy continued, reaching for the pot of tea to refill her mug again. She dropped one spoon of sugar into the mug and stirred, the clinking of the spoon grating against Hermione's nerve. "Is that you were right—you are selfish. How much longer will you force someone you love to live a life where you know they can't stay?"

Hermione flinched. While she had grown to tolerate and even like Pansy Parkinson, they simply did not have a friendship like this. She had never offered words of blunt honesty to Hermione like this—that had always been reserved for Draco or even Harry.

"I'm not forcing him to stay," Hermione mumbled, pulling her feet up to the seat of the chair and wrapping her arms around her knees. "He knows he can't."

"You are," Pansy countered. "Every month that passes that you turn an eye when he does that little ritual. Every good idea he comes up with that you beam at him for from across the table at the meetings. Every poorly muffled shower fuck you two take—you are forcing him to stay in a life that isn't his to have."

Hermione clenched her jaw, her heart began to pound angrily in her chest. Pansy watched her, her eyes flitting about Hermione's face for several moments before she took another slow sip of her tea and then set the mug back down onto the wood of the table. In reality, the sound couldn't have been very loud, but it echoed in Hermione's ears.

"At what cost, Granger?"


Remus blinked his eyes open to a gentle but persistent stabbing in his shoulder. He groaned, pulling his head off the ground before gasping and laying back down. He could feel blood seeping from his side. His right leg throbbed just above his ankle and the shallowness of his breath told him he had broken a rib or two.

There was a strange rustling sound next to him and seconds later, Pansy knelt next to him.

"Christ, you're a fucking mess," Pansy stood, stuck her thumb and forefinger in her mouth before letting out a loud, high pitched whistle. After a moment, she pulled her wand from the holster on her arm and shot off a few sparks into the air.

"You wandered off," she explained, kneeling down again. "We spent the better half of the last hour looking for you."

"I didn't…?" The question hung in the air. I didn't kill anyone else, did I?

She shook her head, "No. You're still within the wards but you did a good job of hiding yourself."

Remus did his best to look around, seeing that he was in the woods in a thick copse of trees. Several smaller trees were demolished, their trucks split in haphazard shards that pointed dangerously up from the ground.

"So, perfectly capable of handling the transformation on your own, you said?"

Remus groaned.

When he caught Pansy's line of sight again she smirked, "Good for you, Lupin."

Remus felt his cheeks heat up and his hands flew to his groin to cover himself. "I don't exactly get to transform fully clothed like an animagus," he grumbled.

"Remus?" Hermione called, out of breath. She pushed through the underbrush and crouched next to him. Instantly, her hands cupped his face and she placed a gentle kiss on his lips. "Merlin, I was worried."

She inched herself back, her knees sinking into the mud as she began digging through her medical kit. She looked up to Pansy, "You could have transfigured him a blanket."

"He just woke up three minutes ago!"

Hermione shot her a glare and pulled a pair of cotton trousers and a jumper from her bag. She laid them over him before yanking the stopper out of a phial of pain potion and tipped it up at his lips. He swallowed it down, thankful for the immediate relief it gave.

"We aren't going to be able to apparate for a while, you've definitely broken a couple ribs. And your leg will need some time to repair the muscle…" she mumbled, moving her wand over him to bring up a series of diagnostics he couldn't read. When she got whatever information she was looking for from the scan, she stuffed her wand back into her sleeve and pulled out a few more small bottles.

"We're pretty far from the cabin, do you think you can walk?"

Remus swallowed down the last of the potions and nodded, "Yeah. I think I'll be fine."

Hermione looked over to Pansy, "We'll be okay here. Tell Harry we'll return later this evening once Remus has had some time to recover. He needs to sleep."

Pansy stood and brushed the front of her trousers off with her hands, "I'm sure we can manage a day without your brilliant minds to fuel us. But, I'll let him know." With that, she turned on her heel, transfigured into her raven form, and disappeared above the trees.

Hermione was quiet as she moved towards his feet, pulling his trousers gingerly over his legs. He felt himself become weightless as she muttered a featherlight charm and he struggled to compensate for the strange lack of gravitational pull he was used to. Slowly, she helped him dress and hoisted him to his feet, wrapping an arm around his waist to support him on the walk back to the cabin.

The walk was long, despite the charm to take the bulk of the weight off his body and the help of an array of pain and healing potions, every step shot ripples of pain through his leg. Each breath was painful as his broken ribs shifted and refused to allow him a sufficient lungful of air. Hermione had healed the worst of the wound on his side, but it still continued to weep and smart against the rub of his jumper.

Remus hadn't had injuries this terrible since taking the Wolfsbane potion and it was a good reminder as to why he needed to remember to take it correctly. Not that the threat of Moony taking over again wasn't a good enough one. However, there was something almost cathartic about letting Moony ravage him. As if the anger he held for himself, the guilt, the loathing was bled free of him through a gnawed ankle and a slashed torso.

His mind felt calmer than it had in months. Which, given the last week and the conversation he had with Hermione only hours before transforming, he did not expect. He felt almost centered. And that scared the shit out of him.

"Remus?"

He shook himself from his thoughts and looked over to Hermione as they finally made their way to the door. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"No. You just look...are you okay?"

"I think so."

"Okay. Watch your step," she whispered, easing them through the door.

It took a little over an hour to get his leg back in decent shape. Though, he now sported several new scars from trying to mangle it. He could feel the delicate tugging of skin on his side as the healing potions did their job to knit the wound closed and after another blood replenishment potion and a pepper-up, he felt nearly human again.

Nearly, he thought, bitterly. Never fully.

Hermione insisted on drawing him a bath to help relax the tense muscles in his hips and neck. Those always hurt the worst after a transformation, even when he had the help of Wolfsbane potion. She stayed by his side, helping him keep his balance as he stripped his clothes off and lowered himself into the tub. She poured a phial of something purple and shimmery into the water. It smelled of lavender and he instantly felt more relaxed.

"What is that?" He asked, leaning forward as she dipped a flannel into the water and ran it over his shoulders.

"Nothing special," she smiled. "Just a bath tonic with a little calming drought infused. I nicked it from Pansy, thought it might help."

"Brave of you to steal from Pansy," Remus chuckled.

"Brave of you to assume this is the first time I've nicked a bath tonic from her."

He sighed, leaning his back against the porcelain and closing his eyes. His knees stuck out of the water, but he didn't mind. The cool contrast of the air against his warm skin was nice. Hermione mumbled something about finding a towel and he nodded his understanding. He couldn't remember the last time he had taken a bath like this. To relax and let the heat of the water soothe his stiff muscles and achy joints.

Freedom feels good.

I'm trying to relax. Your talking is not conducive to that.

Your mind is quieter than it's been in years. We could have this more often, you know.

Mmm, there's just the little problem that you clearly can't control yourself. So, I must.

It felt good to make him suffer, the one who hurt our mate. To feel his bones break against our hands.

Your interference got someone killed.

My interference saved her.

That does not equal out! Hermione is a capable witch, she can handle herself and

She is all that matters.

Remus sighed, cupping some of the shimmery water into his hands to splash over his face. I know.

You might be willing to move the heavens for her, human. But I will unleash hell.

Remus knew that, too.

.


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a/n: A lot of feelings on both sides this chapter. What are we thinking?

I just want to say, I really appreciate every comment, fave, follow, etc that you guys leave! Every single one makes me happy and I can't thank you enough. I love you guys 3

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