Hermione stumbled from the office, the lump in her throat growing as large as a Bludger as she quickly made her way down the hall. She didn't understand why she was having such a visceral reaction to witnessing Lupin and Tonks snogging - after all, she'd heard enough while hidden in the Weasleys' shed during her birthday party to know they had before - but something about it this time made her stomach twist painfully. Lupin had now become privy to her dreams, which felt incredibly intimate, as there really couldn't be any more vulnerable position for her to be in. They had shared that space together just the night before. And now…now, he was snogging Tonks in his DADA office.

WHY is this BOTHERING me? she screamed at herself, gritting her teeth against the hordes of students still making their way to their common rooms after the game. Hermione twisted her hourglass necklace between her fingers, trying to figure out what her destination should be. It didn't matter - just away, and quick as you please, thanks. The Gryffindor common room became the logical terminus.

—

As excited students came and went from the common room in mad preparation for the postgame party, Hermione elected to talk to no one, relieved that Ron was occupied regaling Neville with tales of his Auror training. Ron. That was a complication she hadn't expected. She'd figured he would visit sometime this year, but he'd made such a thing about coming for this first Quidditch game, and in his letter to her before his arrival it seemed clear he expected her to make a thing of it too. Every word he'd written, in fact, sagged heavily with expectation: "Can't wait to see you…we have so much to talk about…need to make up for lost time…" She wasn't prepared for having to turn down his romantic appeals so soon, and certainly not after what she'd been dealing with regarding Lupin and her dreams.

Lupin.

Hermione stared into the common room fireplace, burning the bright, merrily crackling flames into her retinas. She leaned back on the couch and listed a series of questions to herself, something she often did to try to logic things out.

Question: Who is it you're sharing dreams with, which Dr. Wendt says is a sign of your feeling safe with them?

Answer: Lupin.

Question: Who is it that makes your heart pound hard in your chest whenever you see them, hear about them, even think of them?

Answer: Lupin.

Question: Who is it you have no way in hell of being with, and would only be interested in you if that same hell froze over, anyway?

Answer: Lupin.

She knew, as always, that her answers were correct, but she desperately wished it wasn't so. Not really because she wished Lupin would fall in love with her - that was so beyond reality that it was laughable. No, what she wished was that she didn't feel this way at all, and certainly not for Professor Remus Lupin. That she could just grit her way through the nightmares until they, hopefully, eventually faded, and just finish out this year with only school on her mind. Maybe I'm just developing a dependence on him because of the dream thing, she tried to reason. That's all this is. Nothing romantic. Just weak, needy…bullshit.

You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? a particularly sarcastic Other Voice in her mind replied. If it was just neediness, would you be studying the way his hair falls into his eyes when he leans over your desk to look at your notes? Would you be cataloguing the smell of him every single time he was close enough to breathe in, and would the scent of cigarettes and cologne and parchment make heat stir at the base of your spine and creep up into your fingers and lips and every single inch of you until you had to steal away some time alone?

If it was just neediness, would you be feeling like crying right now, thinking about him kissing another woman?

Answer: No. No, you wouldn't.

Hermione was so preoccupied with the great tumbling battle in her mind that she barely noticed Ginny, star of the season-opening Quidditch game, fold herself neatly into a sitting position beside her. Ginny rested her chin on her knuckles and pondered Hermione thoughtfully, a tableau of intrigue. It took a minute for Hermione to register her presence. "Well done, Gin," Hermione managed, not tearing her eyes away from the fire. "Great game."

"Oh please," Ginny responded. "We both know you don't care about the game. What's going on?"

"Huh?"

"You're particularly broody right now, and you weren't earlier today. So, what's going on?"

Hermione chewed her lip, considering if she wanted to talk about this with Ginny or even wanted to give actual, out-loud voice to it at all. The hell with it. "I might have feelings for someone."

Ginny's eyes widened, and an excited smile crossed her face. "Well, that's wonderful, then! Merlin, you say it like someone has a wand pointed at your head. What's so bad about that?"

"I just saw them snogging someone else."

This took Ginny aback. "Are Ron and Neville getting closer than I thought?"

Hermione managed a chuckle at the joke. "Not Ron. Or Neville, either."

The intrigue doubled. Ginny leaned in to her friend. "Who?"

"I…don't want to say, right now. But I just…don't know how to deal with this. I haven't felt quite this way before."

Ginny spun a coppery tendril of hair around her pointer finger and pondered this development. "Alright, well, if you won't give the details, then I see two ways this might go."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"

"One, they unfortunately don't feel the same way about you, but that's alright, because you are young and hot and, um, kind of a celebrity now, in case you hadn't noticed. So you'll easily find someone else. And in the meantime, you can get your snog on with whomsoever you choose, because you deserve to have a little sexy fun too." This made Hermione laugh. "Or, two, they do feel the same for you, but for whatever reason, feel like they can't express that to you. Maybe they're getting their snog on as a distraction from you. Have you talked to this person about your feelings?"

"Of course not," Hermione snorted.

"So how do you know they don't share them? How would they know how you're feeling?"

"Because…I can't. It would be…ridiculous. Impossible."

"Well, you feel this way. Why would them feeling the same be so ridiculous? You're not the Giant Squid, Hermione, you are a catch. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

Hermione smiled, and tilted her head towards Ginny, resting it on the younger witch's shoulder. "So wise for someone who's been mad for the same doofus since she was a child."

Ginny laughed and squeezed Hermione's hand. "Yeah, and I had to wait years for Harry to catch up. Til then I got to see him mooning over Cho Chang, which was SO delightful."

"How'd you do it?" Hermione asked, honestly.

"I just…knew. When you fall in love, you just know. It's a fact, like the twelve uses for dragon's blood or how Patronuses repel dementors. It's incontrovertible. I just knew that, someday, he would catch up. And he did."

Hermione wished she had the same sort of confidence.

—

The party had been rollicking on for at least three hours by the time "Seven Minutes in Heaven" got started in the Gryffindor common room. "Seven Minutes in Heaven" was a game that the Weasley twins had introduced after a particularly illuminating summer between 6th and 7th year hopping between teenage Muggle parties. Since then, someone had always broken it out after the Butterbeer was flowing particularly freely in Gryffindor, and it certainly was tonight.

Hermione was feeling warm and buzzy, though she'd only put away two bottles of Butterbeer so far. Lupin's record player and vinyls were working wonderfully to add to the scene, and she felt herself floating in cozy waves of inebriation as David Bowie's "Let's Dance" played. She'd never heard the song before - her parents were fond of jazz, and certainly didn't have any rock 'n roll records at home - but she liked it, very much.

It was her turn to spin the empty Butterbeer bottle and select the person she would abscond to the Gryffindor broom cupboard with for seven hot-and-heavy minutes. The circle of players now was quite large, including Neville, Ron, Luna, Parvati, Ernie Macmillan, and even a couple of Slytherins who had deigned to join the festivities. Ginny was surveying the scene from on high at her couch perch, demurring due to being in a serious relationship. No matter. It was fuzzy to Hermione why she was even playing this game, but the Butterbeers probably had something to do with it. Whatever. She'd just stand in the closet with whoever the bottle landed upon and maybe have a little chat to make the time pass.

The glass bottle spun, spun, spun, slowing down just as the song's chorus began: "If you say run, I'll run with you…and if you say hide, we'll hide…" The bottle stuttered, juuuust skimming past Neville, and then came to a stop. It was pointing at Ron. Hermione looked up at him with wide eyes, and he gazed back, a hungry expression behind his smirk. This wasn't what she'd wanted. This would make things more complicated. "Because my love for you would break my heart in two…"

"It's you and me, Hermione," said Ron.

"Looks like," was all she could respond.

The group began a small chant: "CUP-BOARD! CUP-BOARD! CUP-BOARD!" Ron proffered a hand across the circle to her with a smile, and Hermione felt like she was living an out-of-body experience as she gave him hers, letting him pull her up and over to the broom cupboard to the sounds of cheers. The song thumped into her skull through muted eardrums: "If you should fall, into my arms and tremble like a flower…"

The last thing she noticed before the cupboard door closed was Ginny staring over at her from the couch, lips pursed.

Darkness overtook the pair, and Hermione could barely see Ron's face illuminated dully by the meager light creeping into the cupboard through the crack in the door. There was barely any room for them to do much more than stand there, close enough to each other to feel the exchange of warm breath. Ron licked his lips nervously. "Sorry you're stuck with me," he offered, shyly.

"Come now, Ronald," she responded, "Anyone would be lucky to be here with you." Ginny's similar words from before echoed in her brain as she spoke.

"What about you? Do you think you're lucky to be here with me?"

"I think I'm lucky to have you in my life at all," she replied, carefully.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"I can't say I haven't thought about something like this before." And it was true, she had. Just not for several months now.

"Me too," whispered Ron, his voice cracking. She could almost hear his pounding heartbeat in his words. They stood face to face for a few moments longer, the sound of Bowie and laughter trickling in with the glow of the common room. Ron licked his lips again. "Want to…want to give it a go?"

Hermione's heart thudded too, but for different reasons. Ginny's earlier encouragement repeated in her ears. There was no way Lupin could ever know about her feelings, so why not try to head things off at the pass? "Well…we owe it to ourselves, right?"

"Right," he said with a relieved laugh.

Ron placed a hand on Hermione's waist, pulling her gently forward as he twined his other fingers through Hermione's steadily unrulier hair. She could smell the Butterbeer on his breath, but it wasn't off-putting - it smelled like juvenile fun and shared celebrations. And she had shared so much with Ron throughout the years, things that only Harry would otherwise understand. Why not share a kiss?

We owe it to ourselves, right?

She stood up on tiptoe to brush her lips against his, barely compensating for the large height disparity between them. He held her tightly and received her kiss with enthusiasm, though he waited with great restraint for her to be the one to initiate tongue. And she did, because why not?

It was a pleasant kiss. Deep and wet. Ron's fingers were careful in her hair, not pulling or yanking but searching, needing.

She didn't feel the same need.

She had daydreamed about kissing Ron for quite a long while there, certainly the better part of her later school years before their time on the run, and especially after he'd abandoned her and Harry in the Forest of Dean, when she desperately felt his absence. But finally experiencing it…

It was fine. Just…fine.

She didn't think it was supposed to be just "fine".

Her mind wandered to a memory from her childhood, just before she'd begun at Hogwarts. Her mother was cast in a summer community theater production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in character she shared a kiss with one of the male actors on the stage. Hermione remembered her jaw had dropped as she sat in the audience, and she leaned over to her father. "What is Mum doing?" she whispered, urgently.

Alan Granger received his daughter's question with a gentle laugh. "It's in the script, love. It's not real - she's pretending."

"Well, she's pretending very well," Hermione responded, aghast.

Hermione hoped she was pretending as convincingly now as her mother had all those years ago at the Baker Street Playhouse.

—

After their Seven Minutes in Heaven were up, Hermione took a quick leave, saying she was going to get more refreshments from the House Elves. They had plenty already, and she certainly didn't need to leave to get more, but the group accepted it well enough. Ron was flushed happy-pink, and he grinned at her as she ducked through the common room exit, probably assuming that she would be back well-stocked with Butterbeers and ready for round two.

Hermione was halfway down the hall when she heard Ginny's voice behind her. "Oy. Hermione." She turned, and saw the redhead was leaning halfway out of the portrait hole, head tilted at her.

"Yeah?"

"I know I said you should get your snog on with whomsoever you choose…but Ron is my brother."

"I know. Sorry it's gross."

"No, I don't care about that," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "What I mean is…Ron cares for you, I know he does. And I also know you don't feel the same." Hermione swallowed, ashamed. "Don't hurt him, Hermione. I know you're hurting right now…but don't hurt him."

"I…I know. You're right. Thanks."

Ginny nodded. "Wherever you're going, be careful." Hermione was grateful she didn't press for further details. Ginny ducked back out of the hole, and the portrait swung shut behind her.

There was no need to be careful where Hermione was going. There was no way anyone else would be there - and so she could be, completely and blessedly, alone.

—

Hermione reached the Shrieking Shack in record time and easily made her way inside. It startled her when she entered just how full the Shack was - more than she had ever seen it. Usually it was dank and barren. It was still dank, of course, but now it was filled with many crates and loose magical items, including innocuous-looking books and bits of decor perched on dusty tables or leaning against the water-damaged walls.

As she took in this new development, she recognized some items, many of which were important magical artifacts that she'd studied during her time trying to suss out what Voldemort's Horcruxes could be. And some of the books, even, were quite rare; it stunned her they were just laying here out in the open, and not safely hidden away somewhere in the Hogwarts Library. She realized this had become a storage space for valuable items either before or after the Battle, with the assumption that no one would dare enter and thus, the items were as secure as possible until they could be moved elsewhere. It wasn't a bad plan - clearly, because they were still untouched.

Against the far wall, Hermione saw a tall, large rectangular object covered with a grayish sheet. It enticed her, and she drew closer in interest, forgetting about her strange night for just a moment, forgetting about Lupin and Tonks and Ron's warm breath on her cheek and the giddy way he'd smiled after they exited the broom cupboard. She reached out and pulled the sheet off the mystery item.

As the sheet fell away, dust bloomed into the air and Hermione first noticed the top of the object through the haze, a curved metal frame bearing the words "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi". She waved a hand in front of her face and the air cleared, and with it, showed what was in front of her: a large and beautiful mirror. Her eyes trailed to the middle of the mirror glass and she jumped, not expecting what it reflected to her: herself, studying the mirror, and behind her, a one Professor Remus Lupin.

Hermione whipped around and saw Lupin in the middle of the room, hands thrust in his pockets and gazing back at her, meekly. She clasped a hand around her heart. "LUPIN! You can't just go…sneaking up on people like that!"

"I know, I know, sorry, sorry…" he mumbled, stepping forward. "You were so focused on that sheet that by the time you would've noticed me walking out here, it was already too late. I didn't mean to frighten you. I was already here."

Hermione's fingers loosened over her chest. "You didn't." She looked back at the mirror. Her cheeks were scarlet with surprise, and Lupin was standing much closer now, looking at the glass from over her shoulder. "Do you know what this is?"

Lupin nodded. "Dumbledore showed it to me, once. It's called the Mirror of Erised. It…it is said to show your most honest and deepest desires."

Hermione glanced back at Lupin, then back at the mirror. To her, it just looked like a dusty, unpolished antique mirror. "Hmm."

"What do you see in it?" Lupin asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a torrent.

She tilted her head. "I just see - us. Just a regular mirror." Hermione saw Lupin's eyes widen behind her, and turned to him. "Why? What do you see? Is it working for you?"

Lupin glanced over her shoulder at the object and swallowed. "Y-yes. Yes. It's working."

"What do you see, Remus?" Her voice felt hot and dry in her throat, and her heart pounded at calling him his first name. She wanted so desperately to know what he saw in this mirror. She wanted it more than anything.

"I…" She hadn't realized how close they were now until she turned, but she was just inches from him, and she could breathe in his smoky, woody scent, could see the scars on his face almost blur into his skin in the muffled darkness of the room, could hear his breath, quick and shuddering. All the hurt and confusion she had been feeling since seeing him earlier with Tonks ebbed away like an evening tide.

We owe it to ourselves, right?

Once more this night Hermione stretched upward on her tiptoes, only this time, she reached her own arms out to search and to need. She whispered the fingers of her right hand against Lupin's cheek, feeling the ridged skin of scar tissue meet the soft hair of his close-cropped beard. Her left hand slid up to clasp lightly around his arm, and she pulled herself closer. She expected him to fall away, to push her back, to run, but he did none of those things. Instead, he closed his eyes.

She closed hers, and sketched her lips onto his.

Lupin pushed into the kiss, and feeling the sweet and warm pressure of his lips framed by the prickly scratch of his facial hair made her smile against his embrace. It was so good. It was a warm hearth; it was Felix Felicis and spending the night at home with Mum and Dad as snow fell outside; it was David Bowie crooning his desperation, an audial remnant of 1983; it was the hot slash of Firewhiskey down the throat and burning ash of the fire of war. It was everything, all at once.

He framed her jaw with his large hand, and she felt him gently rub his thumb against the bottom of her chin in a gesture of adoration and intimacy. He wants this, she realized for the first time. He wants me. She pulled him closer, and he placed his other palm on the small of her back, arching her body into his. All she could think about was the insistent taste of green apples as she dissolved into the moment.

This was better than fine. This is everything she had been aching for. And she never wanted it to end.

A/N: Yep, this chapter came sooner than expected, but if inspiration strikes, why not? I'm excited for this story, so no reason to delay :) Song referenced, of course, is "Let's Dance" by David Bowie. Hope y'all enjoy - any response is much appreciated!