As they pulled away from each other to breathe, Lupin gazed down into the lovely face of the girl who had kissed him, her eyes still gently closed with sleepy adoration. He studied her freckles, lightly splashed across her skin like cinnamon-colored confetti. Her lips were curved upward in a smile, peach-soft flesh made rosy by desire. Her lush, dark eyelashes skimmed her flushed cheeks, holding onto the moment by keeping themselves shut against the intrusion of light. Hermione's whole face was a celebration; perfect and surprising. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

It made what he had to do next all the worse.

"Oh, Hermione…" Lupin whispered, speechless.

She opened her large brown eyes. "Remus." It was a statement, but what did it mean? He could tell she was searching in his eyes for the answer.

"We can't."

His two words went off like an Unforgivable Curse between them, red and terrible. He hated himself for saying it. He hated himself for getting into a position where he needed to say it. Most of all, he hated himself for the cracked look Hermione's eyes got as they registered this devastating collection of only six letters.

We can't.

Her eyes had broken into shards of hurt, clouded and muddy as a Butterbeer bottle smashed carelessly against a brick wall. She stared at him a moment, almost as if she were mentally collecting every tiny fragment of his betrayal into her endless beaded handbag, to file away and never think about again. And then she stumbled backward, removing her hands from the side of his face and the back of his biceps. He almost lunged forward at her retreat, his body unconsciously desperate to return itself to the mercy of her warm and tender touch. But he held back. He always managed to - eventually.

He had just fucked up this time, was all. Taken by surprise.

"We can't," he repeated for emphasis, and the two words seared like acid against his tongue. "I'm your professor. I'm…in a position of power over you. We can't. It's not right."

"A…position of power?" She sputtered. "I could take you in a duel."

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

"You have no power over me. I'm here at Hogwarts because I chose to be. I will excel in Defense Against the Dark Arts with or without preferential treatment. I survived a year on the run and the Battle of Hogwarts. I can make my own decisions." Her eyes gleamed with determination.

"That's not…Hermione, I am your professor," Lupin repeated. "I am 20 years older than you."

"19."

He grimaced. "Please. It's not right."

"Do you not want this?" The prideful shine had left her eyes, replaced by pained uncertainty. He cringed at the sad and shamed look coloring her face, and reprimanded himself once more for making her ever feel anything negative about herself. She deserved only to know how much she truly meant to him. But there was no way she could. He knew what had to be done.

"No, Hermione. I don't want this. I'm sorry." He paused, internally begging himself not to twist the knife deeper into her heart. You have to, a quiet answer came. It's the only way to keep her safe from you. Lupin's eyes drifted to a deep gash in the wall, and he remembered back to making it in 6th year during a particularly horrific transformation. Dried brownish blood smudged the edges of the deep tear. He had ripped his nails down to the quick that night.

You're a monster, Remus Lupin. And she deserves more than a monster.

"And I'm sorry if you feel you've embarrassed yourself, but really, it's no problem." That did it. Her face finally fractured into a million pieces of shame, as unmendable as the glass would've been if he'd thrown a chair at the damned mirror behind her.

Her eyelids flickered once, twice, and then she spun on her heel, fleeing the awful shack without a final glance in his direction.

It was only after a full minute of standing mutely alone in the dark that Lupin realized he'd never answered Hermione's question. When he looked back at the Mirror, he saw the same image he'd seen before she'd asked: Hermione was back, and standing in front of him, the hourglass gleaming at her throat and his burgundy cardigan sweater still pulled tight around her arms. Remus also saw himself in the mirror behind her, but he looked different - he was younger in this reflection, and his face was free of both scars and exhaustion. He looked bright, happy, and normal, i.e., not his actual self.

Mirror-Hermione gazed back at him through the glass, and he wished she would speak, like a portrait would. But she only stared into his eyes, still searching, still hoping. A figment, and nothing more.

She could never be anything more. For her own sake.

—

Lupin sat in his cabin a half hour later, dragging deeply on his cigarette and exhaling the smoke out the cracked window. The room was dark, and only the smouldering end of the cig threw off light in the din. He felt sick. He'd initially escaped to the Shrieking Shack after Tonks had gone off to chat with another professor who had been her classmate, with a promise to return to him before the night was over. She winked when she said this. He couldn't deal with having to let her down that night, and so, the Shack it was.

And then, Hermione it was.

God, she had looked so beautiful when she walked into the Shack. Her face was lit only with the waning moonlight streaming in through the dusty windows, but it was enough to lend her an ethereal glow. It reminded him of how she'd looked the night at the beginning of summer when she'd come upon him on the ledge behind the Weasley home - lovely and light and somehow, so strong. So tangible.

Hermione's eyes were wide and intelligent as she took in the surroundings, and he wouldn't admit it, but the reason he hadn't announced himself right when she entered was because his voice had caught in his throat, rendered useless by the image of her taking inventory of the mysterious items filling the Shack. He could almost see the list in her mind growing as she surveyed every strange item; could almost hear the gears whirring away in her brain. Her intelligence, of course, was what impressed everyone most about Hermione, and in noticing it he wasn't any different from the masses. But he was more than impressed by her intellect. He admired her. He was fascinated by her. Her beauty was breathtaking, but her mind? That was what truly rendered him speechless.

And yet.

It was not her beauty or even her mind that he'd injured that night. It was something deeper. Metaphorically, he supposed, it was her heart.

Her heart.

It was still absolutely astonishing to him, nearly an hour later, that her heart had been a factor at all. It had become clear to him when she confusedly stated she hadn't seen anything strange in the mirror, just them standing there. He knew the mirror was working; he knew by what he himself had just seen. And so he realized that her greatest desire, apparently, was him, standing over her shoulder. And that had completely shocked him, along with two other distinct emotions: elation, and absolute bone-chilling panic.

It was not only that he was simply not in her league - though, certainly, the brilliant, beautiful, and now-famous young witch deserved fathoms more than he could ever provide. No, it was also the issue of what would happen if anyone found out. He was known enough as a member of the Order of the Phoenix that any public relationship would mean public scrutiny, and almost assuredly, public condemnation. If they attempted any sort of romance, it would become general knowledge at Hogwarts pretty much immediately, of that much he was certain. And then it would only be a short step to the pages of the Daily Prophet. He could see it now: "PERVERT WEREWOLF PROF PREYS ON STUDENT", could read one headline. "SICKO PROFESSOR SAVAGES GOLDEN TRIO GAL", could be another. It's not that he necessarily cared what people thought of him, in general - he was used to being treated with suspicion and disgust. But he couldn't imagine McGonagall's reaction, believing that he had betrayed her trust to victimize a student. Or Molly, finally given an excuse for her mistrust of his monstrous nature. But worst of all could be Harry. How would he react to his father's friend dating his own? Lupin couldn't bear the thought of what he felt would be Harry's guaranteed revulsion and horror. He was already treading a fine line with Harry, both of them tentatively trying to be part of the other's lives, and both finding it difficult to figure out. But if Harry thought Lupin was putting Hermione in a compromising position? There would be no coming back from that.

And so he did what he felt he had to - he hurt Hermione to save her from himself.

He knew it was the right choice. But it still felt awful.

After what may have been minutes or hours sitting by the window, staring out into the ink-black night through the smoke of a half-dozen cigarettes, Remus Lupin heard a knock at his cabin door. For a moment, his heart surged painfully, some hope creeping into his blood that it could perhaps be Hermione, that she with all of her brilliance had deduced that he had fooled her, and that she realized now that what he felt was really the opposite of what he'd expressed: that, in reality, he was absolutely enraptured by her.

But no, somehow he knew that the sharp rap of knuckles on hardwood did not belong to her, and his stomach fell again back into its sad and despairing pit. He stubbed out his half-smoked cig on the windowsill and walked to the door, breathing deeply. He knew who this would actually be.

And he guessed correctly. "Remus," said Tonks, her hair now a resplendent orange, the slight lilt of Firewhiskey on her breath. The Auror grinned at him, and he forced a small smile.

"Tonks."

She threw her arms around him, careening her lips into his as he stumbled backward to steady himself against the woman's tilt-a-whirl grasp. Tonks' tongue plunged into his mouth and, after a moment, he returned the kiss hungrily. Remus didn't want this, in fact desperately wanted something else, but he would never experience that, couldn't, and so, why not numb away the pain with someone who lusted for him? They could both benefit. At the very least, they wouldn't be sleeping alone tonight.

He pulled Tonks inside and kicked the door closed, sloppily yanking off her shirt as she pulled at his own, popping at least two buttons off onto the floor on the way. Fuck it, he thought, and kept his eyes closed, imagining instead the taste of Hermione's kiss, sweet and warm and gentle and passionate. He was finally able to place it: she had tasted like the lavender lemon-cake his mother used to make for his birthdays when he was still young. She had tasted like home.

—

Hermione, for her own part, had been sitting at her own bedroom window, gazing down into the grounds behind the castle and watching plumes of smoke float up and away from the dark front window of the cabin by the Forest. That was, until a small figure with quite recognizable neon hair appeared at the front door, and was hastily pulled into the cabin by one Remus Lupin as they snogged lustily on his doorstep. It all made complete sense to her, now. She had been so, so stupid - uncharacteristically so.

Lupin would never want her. And she'd been a fool for ever imagining he would.

A/N: Whew...yeah, here comes the angst. Chapter title comes from the song "Touch", by Sleeping at Last. Hope you liked it - love reading feedback and seeing comments, it means so much that y'all are still reading and enjoying the story!