"Time is the fire in which we burn."

Delmore Schwartz

No one dared to speak. They were all in shock. Even in his worst nightmares, Remus could never have imagined this. It was one of the worst things that could happen. Gideon had blanched, and panic had replaced the anger on his face. Sirius looked like he was about to imitate James, and vomit his breakfast too. Remus had blanched and was staring at Remi, hoping to know how to act, but the wizard seemed to be stuck.

"It can't be possible."

"I assure you it is. The moment two people have sex, consensual or not, unprotected, there is a risk of fertilization. Which is the case here."

Remi still didn't react, so it was Remus who asked gently:

"How long?"

"Two and a half months."

"Good, you'll take that thing out of her uterus, and everything will be fine! You get her an abortion, and everything will be fine."

Everyone looked at Remus as if a third arm had suddenly sprouted. Remus wondered if he was being anachronistic, but he ran the dates through his head, he was sure it had been allowed for years, at least in the Muggle world. He tried to remember the wizarding dates, but without success.

"Tell me it's legal here, I beg you."

"Mr Lucas, a child is a gift of magic to many wizards."

"Is it legal? Answer me, damn it!"

"Only in cases of rape," sighed the wizard. But the rape must have been acknowledged before the Wizenmagot."

"Isn't her mutilated and almost destroyed vagina enough evidence? What about the Wizenmagot? In case you've forgotten, there is no more."

"I agree with you, but two mediwizards have to agree, and I'm not sure that any of my colleagues would agree without the patient's consent. You can't make your niece's decisions for her. It's her body."

"You're an advocate for women's bodies now? Their bodies have been objectified for years and no man has ever lifted a finger. This is the only time in her life I would make such a decision! I know her! She would never have wanted children from rape, she doesn't even want children. And you forget where she was tortured. You want another Death Eater's child? Or are you waiting for you-know-who to have a child maybe? There's no way this thing is going to stay in her body another day. If you don't convince anyone I'll go to a Muggle doctor. Now I want to go see her."

Three days Hermione had been like this. Remus hadn't left St. Mungo's since then. He stood staring at Hermione from his chair, wondering how they were going to get through this. The young woman still had no reaction, and the wizards weren't very optimistic either. But Remus couldn't conceive of that. He couldn't be the only chosen one who could still accomplish the mission. He didn't feel he could do it alone. He couldn't do it alone. He needed Hermione's support.

The news that Pluto and Proserpina had given him was anything but good, four more horcruxes, he might as well face the worst right now, to destroy, alone. Minerva could never help him all the time, Hogwarts had to be her priority. There was no way he would allow the marauders to come with him, even if they wanted to, it was too dangerous. Remus was alone.

The wizards had removed the thing in Hermione's womb, and that was the only positive news. At least he didn't have to worry about that anymore. But it reminded him that he had failed terribly. Hermione had been traumatised by the gang rape she had suffered, she still bore the marks of it when an unknown man got too close or held her by the shoulders. She was terrified that it could happen to her again, that was what she feared most for herself. And Remus had sworn to her that he would protect her, that he would not let anyone hurt her again. He had promised Hermione that he would always be there for her, that he wouldn't leave her again for a week, that he would destroy any Death Eaters who dared to go near her. And he'd bloody well failed. He felt terribly guilty. He had had a bad feeling when Hermione had told him that she was only going with Fabian, but he had done nothing to stop them.

And Fabian had died. Hermione would have killed him. He didn't know what to think anymore. He wanted more than anything for Hermione to come out of her lethargic state so that they could finally know the truth. He looked up when he heard the door to the room open. He held back a sigh as he saw the marauders in front of him.

The three wizards had come every day, trying unsuccessfully to get him out of here. It wasn't healthy to stay in the room like this, staring at Hermione's still body, but he couldn't do anything else.

"Hi. We got you a coffee."

James handed it to him, trembling, and Remus grabbed it before taking a sip and putting it back on the coffee table beside him.

"You know you can't stay here forever. The full moon is in five days."

The full moon. Here was something that had completely slipped his mind. Like everything else that wasn't named Hermione for that matter. He didn't look at them, but he could feel their insistent eyes on him.

"Merlin, the full moon. How are they going to do that? I mean, even if she's not actually unconscious, she's got IVs to feed her, to help her, to do everything!"

"She won't transform."

"Just because she's in this state doesn't mean the wolf in her won't come out."

"She will not transform."

"And how is she going to do that?"

"The Guardians, well Proserpina and Pluto. Lady Anastasia and Sir Raphaël, as you call them, have used their magic to block the activation of the lycanthropy genes. Do not rejoice, it is not possible to cast this spell so easily. We can't do it, mere humans that we are. They didn't tell me when it would stop, but all I know is that it's not forever."

Remus had given all these explanations in a monotone, without rejoicing. He just wanted to be alone with Hermione. He didn't need the judgment of his friends.

"You need to pull yourself together, you know?" said Sirius. "You can't stay in this room forever. Helena's counting on you."

"You don't know that, you don't know her."

"Damn it Remi! She's been tortured for weeks! Her spirit has broken. You can't do anything for her! Being like this or dead, it wouldn't matter. By Merlin, she can't help us anymore, she has no conscience. She's gone completely mad!"

Remus stood up suddenly and slammed Sirius against the wall, looking angry and threatening.

"Don't ever say that again! She's not mad! Hermione is not crazy, okay?"

James was about to pull him away to free Sirius, but he stopped abruptly. He glanced briefly at Remus, who seemed as stunned as he was, while Sirius was still staring at Remi, eye to eye, both breathless.

"So that's what her name is. Hermione."

Remus took a few steps back, realising the blunder he had just made. Hermione had told him. She had told him that one day he would crack under pressure, anger or fear. And once again, she had been right. It wasn't as if they were going to learn much from this, but still. Their cover was no longer strong, their names were the last barrier.

"Get out! Get out!"

Surprisingly, the marauders obeyed and left him alone. He had to find a way to get Hermione out of her state. He didn't know why she had got herself into such a state. Because according to the Damned Spouses, she had locked herself in her own mind. Remus didn't know how she could have done it. He had never heard of such a thing, but Hermione had been training for years to protect her mind. She had spent hundreds of hours on it, both in theory and in practice. Maybe this was the last solution to protect her memories. Maybe it wasn't. He had no idea, and only Hermione knew the answers to this riddle that she herself had created.

Four months. Four months Hermione had been in the same state. There was no improvement, no difference. She still spent her days sitting on the white bed at St. Mungo's, staring at the white wall in front of her, almost without blinking. The only changes in her behaviour were at noon and midnight. At noon, the witch would begin to swing her legs up and down in perfect harmony ten times before becoming still again. At midnight, her heart would suddenly speed up for ten minutes. Enough to seriously worry the medical officers, but not enough to cause her to have a heart attack. Full moon nights also had an impact on Hermione, she couldn't fall asleep, somehow. Not that she could do it naturally, she had no sense of time and it was the wizards who gave her a sleeping potion every night, but on full moon nights, it didn't matter how much she took, Hermione stayed awake.

The number ten had intrigued him. It had been his idea to count her leg movements and the time her heart was racing. After three days he had noticed that it always came back at the same time, and his hypothesis had been confirmed. The mediwizards had no serious leads, and Remus hadn't had any for a while either. Then he'd wondered what the number ten could mean to them. Ten. It wasn't a number they were familiar with. It didn't come up that much in their lives, so why ten?

It was after six weeks that Remus had an idea. He thought of Dora and Teddy, as he often had since Hermione was locked up, and remembered May the 2nd in 1983. It was the first May the 2nd he had spent worrying about Hermione's disappearance rather than the dead. It had been ten years since Remus had lost his wife and son. Ten years, a decade.

It was a long time. And it was a strange paradox because with everything they had been through, it seemed like so much longer, but at the same time it felt like it had only been a few months because the pain in his chest was still there. Ten years since hell had really begun for Hermione. Ten, like her ten leg beats, ten like the ten minutes her heart was racing. The theory was more than a little shaky, but Remus thought there was a connection to Hermione's condition. Maybe it was totally unconscious, it was Hermione's body acting, but Remus didn't believe in coincidences anymore. He didn't know what was going on in Hermione's head, but maybe this rhythm, every day at midnight and noon, was a way of letting him know that she was still there, that she couldn't communicate with him, but her mind was still there, she just had to find a way to get out of her own head, and everything would be back to normal, or at least as normal as it could be when you were Time Chosen.

Hermione had been in a coma for eleven months now. Her condition had not changed, there was no improvement, no decline either. The only change there had been was in May the 2nd 1984. Hermione had changed her habit from ten leg beats to eleven, and her heart was now racing for an extra minute. Remus' theory had been confirmed, but he wasn't happy about it. How could he be happy as long as Hermione was in this state? It didn't matter how many beats she had, all that mattered was that she got out of this bloody state, but it still didn't seem to be happening.

Remus felt terribly alone. He had no one to rely on. He saw Minerva less and less, the witch was too busy at Hogwarts. The castle was still secure, there were Death Eaters inside, but Dumbledore seemed to have everything under control.

The first few battles had been tough. Of course the Order knew that Fabian and Hermione had disappeared, but they still hoped that they would return. But the former would never come back, and the latter... it wasn't certain. The others tried to avoid talking about it in front of him, but he knew what was being said about him when he was at St Mungo's. He came there every day. Only five times in eleven months had he failed to keep his promise to come, and that was only because of battles. Voldemort's army was growing, and Remus wondered when it would stop. How could there still be wizards joining his cause every week? Hermione and Fabian's absence had to be filled, because they all knew that they had lost two of their best fighters. Molly and Arthur had joined the Order, but their role was minimal given their children and their inability to come and fight at any time. Kingsley had also joined the Resistance with a dozen other aurors, as had Hestia Jones. Each had been interviewed under veritaserum beforehand and an oath had been taken to prevent them from betraying the Order.

With these new arrivals, the HQ had become more crowded. James and Harry still slept there every night, as the house in Godric's Hollow was not safe enough, but at the same time Remus was grateful to them, he did not stay alone at night. But there were also other people who came more or less regularly to spend the night. At first Remus felt bad about all these strangers, not knowing them was the worst thing, but then he got used to it, he didn't have much choice.

But what had surprised Remus the most was the two new recruits. A couple. It was Gideon who had come to warn him in a hurry, they were spending much more time together since they were both without their partner, asking him if he was married to a Black girl. It was by the same occasion that he had learned that his in-laws, at least in another time, were in the living room. Fortunately, being prepared, and his years of training had managed to keep a neutral mask. They were safe and sound, that was all that mattered. They weren't the people he'd known, just fellow Order members, and that was all they had to be. Strangely, Remus had managed to stick to that, and sometimes chatted with them, but mostly he left the room when he knew they were coming. He'd been monstrously embarrassed when Andromeda had told him about their Metamorphmagus daughter, but except for a few shakes of his hands, he'd luckily not let on.

The Order now had two spies, and that was a great help to everyone. Only the older members, the ones who were trusted, knew about it, Moody, Minerva, Frank, Alice, the marauders, Marlene and Edgar in the end. Dumbledore had been reluctant to let any of them know about the other spy, Moody was against it, but Alice was for it, arguing that if their cover was blown, they might as well help each other. Remus had expected James and Sirius to be extremely vocal when they found out that Severus had been a spy for years, but they had behaved quite well, probably too shocked to see that he was there.

But Remus knew his friends, and he knew Sirius would be complaining to his double for days, it was only going to be the two of them, like all the time, so Sirius wasn't going to be able to repeat it to different people, his double was going to have to put up with his long tirades about Severus always being a Death Eater. He felt sorry for him. James had been a little angry, but Remus had taken him aside, explaining that he had wanted to make amends before Lily's death, and that although many of his actions were to blame, he needed to focus on what he could bring to the Order. He had told him that he didn't have to talk to him, or even look at him. James had nodded, more concerned with his son yawning than Remus' words. Accepting that Regulus was a spy was easier than accepting that Snape was one too. They didn't have the same background. But the two spies hadn't seemed surprised to find themselves face to face with each other.

The world was still surviving, even without Hermione, the Resistance was still there, the people, though terrified for the most part, were still listening to Sirius and Remus's radio, still fighting for their rights, still defending the Muggle villages.

And the hunt for horcruxes continued too. Remus had retrieved the Hufflepuff cup last week, with James' help. They had broken into the manor on a day when there was going to be a battle, Severus had warned them, and had been able to get it without too much difficulty. They hadn't had to face any fears or memories, or even drink a potion created by Voldemort. He was too presumptuous to think that an object could be stolen if it was near him. Although Remus refused to admit it, James had been a great help and he probably wouldn't have got off so easily without him.

He'd been researching famous artifacts that belonged to Merlin, that's all he'd been looking for months, but hadn't found anything very conclusive. Merlin was a legend in both the magical and Muggle worlds, but he had been very secretive about his life, and Remus had no idea which objects were important to the illustrious wizard.

Remus glanced at the day's paper, and sighed as he looked at the date. One year and two months since Hermione had been in the same state. And more than anything, today was her birthday. And she was thirty. Remus knew that she never imagined she would reach that age, and he himself never thought she would reach it in a coma.

Thirty years old. She had lived so much that she looked older. It had been eighteen years since she had entered Hogwarts, eighteen since she had met Ron, Harry and all the others. That age was often a turning point in people's lives when they reached it, but not Hermione, she didn't even realise that she was a year older.

For the first time in months Remus had to look after Harry and Neville alone, their parents, like most of the Order, were on a mission. Remus knew he wasn't only because Minerva had asked Albus to leave him alone that day, but he was left with two four year old on his hands, which wasn't necessarily better.

He didn't like seeing Harry and Neville hanging around at St. Mungo's, hospitals had never been healthy places for children, even more so in times of war when seriously injured people could turn up at any time, but there was no way he wasn't going to see Hermione, so it would be okay this time. It was Neville's first time there, and only the second for Harry. No one had wanted to traumatise them more than necessary by seeing Hermione's motionless body. Harry had only seen it on the first day, and despite his requests, everyone had agreed that this was no place for children.

He greeted the mediwizards, they were used to seeing him every morning by now, and then entered Hermione's room, asking the two boys not to make too much noise, but he didn't need to, they both walked silently over to Hermione, and sat down on either side of the witch before taking her hand. They seemed to be communicating with each other, but they weren't speaking, as if they had their own means of communication. Remus looked down, for five seconds at most, but when he looked up again, the scene before him left him bewildered.

"What the hell are you two doing? Take your hand off me now, Harry! And you too, Neville! Why did you lay her down like that?"

He didn't know how they had managed to force Hermione to lie down, with only the strength of two four year old. But the most shocking thing was their hands, which were on Hermione's chest.

"What the hell! What did your parents tell you? You don't touch someone like that without asking their permission! Especially if it's a girl's breasts!"

"But we are not touching her breasts!"

"Yes, we are touching her heart!"

"Her heart?"

"You adults are such idiots."

"Harry!"

"But she's obviously in pain! She's screaming for help. She needs us."

Without asking Remus anything else, Harry and Neville rested their hands, on Hermione's chest, now Remus could see it was at her heart, and closed their eyes. Remus was about to stop them, seeing that nothing was happening, but a light came out of their hands, and it began to swell, and then enveloped the three wizards, so that Remus couldn't even see what they were doing.

After (too) long a time, the cage of light suddenly vanished and the two children removed their hands from Hermione's body. Nothing happened, until Hermione's eyes became less glassy and she suddenly sat up, screaming in pure terror. She looked completely lost, not knowing where she was, but the relief in her eyes was evident when she recognised Remus.

"You see, me and Nev just fixed her heart."

And Harry Potter walked out of the room, arm in arm with Neville Longbottom, with a haughty look on his face that Remus never thought he'd see.