477The first thing Hermione did upon reaching the Potter Manor was take a shower.
"Bloody dog smell clinging to my bloody hair and bloody clothes," she muttered under her breath, "even my bloody clutch." Each of these curses was punctuated by another article of her formalwear hitting the floor as soon as she entered her private room.
"Hermione, I heard you just got back and-"
Hermione shrieked and grabbed the nearest item, a wizarding chess board. This scattered all the pieces across the room as she attempted to conceal herself from the intruder. The now partially-opened door revealed Remus, who blushed bright red and spun around.
"Remus what are you doing up?" she hissed at his back. "It's one o'clock in the morning!"
"I've been up!" he said. "I needed to make sure you were okay. I've been worried sick about you being with all those death eaters these last few hours."
"Well, as you can see, I'm fine."
"I'll say," she thought she heard him say.
"What was that?"
"Oh nothing." Remus scratched the back of his neck, and Hermione could now see his blush reaching down past the collar of his shirt. "I'm. I'm going to... go now. See you in the morning. Not like this again, I mean-"
Unable to form a complete sentence, Remus fairly ran out of the room. Once she'd firmly shut the door behind him, Hermione dropped the chess board and rolled her eyes. He really was adorable. Hermione's skin felt like it was tingling from the brief millisecond of time his eyes connected with her body. This thought reminded her of her previous mission to get cleaned up, and she headed once more for the en suite bathroom. Now she needed a shower for a whole different reason.
"What I still don't understand is how Malfoy telling Riddle he's a pretty, pretty princess somehow made Riddle figure out that you were at the party, Hermione," Sirius said as he wolfed down five pieces of toast at their late breakfast, chewing with his mouth open and getting crumbs all over the table.
"Yeah," James agreed, snatching a piece of bacon right out of Remus' hand. In retaliation, Remus charmed James' coffee to come right back out of his nose and shower his eggs, much to Sirius' delight.
Honestly, it was like eating with a bunch of wild animals. She had begun to hate when Mr. and Mrs. Potter left for one of their meetings.
"So what was it, Hermione?" Remus asked, crossing his arms and looking quite satisfied with his breakfast. "Have you met Voldemort before and had an inside joke about princesses?"
Hermione groaned. Forcing Lucius to say those things had not been one of her finer moments, and she'd replayed it over and over in her mind all the way home from the party, berating herself for her stupidity.
"I was an idiot. When Malfoy walked up to Voldemort, it would have been obvious to the most untrained wizard that he was under some kind of enchantment. He was robotically repeating something he never would say otherwise, and he didn't remember saying it after he'd just said it.
"And remember that note I got? It was written on a scrap of Fordyce's Grimoire. Clearly, someone knows enough about soul bonds to recognize them, or at least when one is operating under the effects of one. That same person also apparently knows who I am. So, I can only conclude-"
Sirius' face went white. "Voldemort is the one who sent you that note."
"Merlin's beard, Hermione, you could have died!" Remus exclaimed.
"I had no idea the letter came from Voldemort!" she defended herself. " And I didn't know he was going to be at this party, didn't know he was going to recruit Sirius right away, and never dreamed he'd make such a bloody lucky guess as to who I am. I can't predict everything!"
"Then stop acting like it!" Remus begged. "You go around, saying you're from the future, telling me you know everything that will happen to me in my life, even how I die. You come with all this knowledge about the war and our enemies and our world, and then on top of that you're horrifyingly brilliant about spells and charms and defense against the dark arts. Sometimes I DO think you can predict everything, Hermione, and you never correct us! Don't you see how dangerous that is, convincing a bunch of people that you're basically Morganna come again?"
"I thought you liked that about Hermione," James said slyly, "how she's like the 'priestess of all knowledge and power' or something?"
"What?" Hermione said. "No I'm not. That's absurd."
Remus blushed and stared at the oriental carpet. "We were drunk when I said that, James," he muttered.
Suddenly very interested in procuring some firewhiskey, Hermione had to shake that thought from her mind and continue. "I'm serious. I don't know everything. Especially now that so much about this timeline has changed. I- I'm sorry if I've led you to believe otherwise."
"Look, let's forget all that," James said, taking the last gulp of his coffee. "What I want to know is how Voldemort, who's never met Hermione, knows who she is. Someone's feeding him information, and I have a guess who it is."
Sirius' eyes narrowed. "That bloody snake," he growled. "I'll show him the pad of my foot."
That afternoon, the pack spent hours planning how they could find and trap Snape. Even with the unbreakable vow, the boys didn't have any guesses as to who else could be responsible for slipping Voldemort information. None of them were very confident in their snake-catching abilities, however, considering they couldn't even find Peter.
Charlus Potter had spoken with Peter's dad, who said he'd run away and they hadn't heard from him since school let out. They were all concerned by how Mr. Pettigrew didn't seem to care about his son disappearing and how quickly he got off the fire call with Mr. Potter. The pack had sent three owls in the weeks since, without so much as a hoot of a reply.
They all had theories about what happened. James was convinced Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew were just worried about their only child, and had decided to keep him close after Alice's death by shielding him from everything related to Hogwarts, including his best friends. Sirius thought Peter had finally gone off to join a muggle circus like he'd always suggested, doing magic tricks and breaking the statute of secrecy. Remus wanted to believe Peter was just off on an adventure to find himself, though he seemed to doubt his own words even as he voiced them.
Hermione kept her thoughts to herself.
By suppertime, they were no closer to capturing Severus Snape. Dorea sensibly suggested they all turn in early and start fresh in the morning, which Sirius and James reluctantly agreed to. Hermione nodded, but caught something in Remus' eye that made her reconsider.
Shortly after everyone went to bed, she heard a soft knock on her door. A few moments later, she and Remus were sitting together atop a hill in the Potter's sprawling backyard, watching the stars come up in the darkening night sky.
"So you didn't even notice? Not one single panic attack while you were at the Malfoy's?" Remus asked as he traced patterns on the back of her fingers. "I didn't want to ask you in front of everybody, but I wanted to check on you."
"No," Hermione confirmed, "in all the commotion and sneaking around, I just stayed focused. A few times, my mind wandered through the hallways back into that horrible room with her and the knife, but then something would come up and take my attention off it, and I'd be free."
"Well I'm glad," he said. "I keep telling Lily that she should really look into mind healing after Hogwarts. Look how she's helped you! St. Mungo's doesn't have anyone working in mind healing right now, I checked. They could use someone like her."
Hermione hummed noncommittally, preferring the sensation of Remus' hip pressed against hers to the conversation they were currently having. She'd escaped Malfoy Manor without getting sucked into the past at all; now, she wanted to live in the present.
Hermione breathed in deeply through her nose as she lay on her back, smelling both the sweet air from the ripening orchard and the faint scent of peppermint that she knew was Remus. She sighed. It had been weeks since they'd been able to just relax next to each other.
"Can I ask you something, Hermione?"
"Of course."
Remus threaded his fingers behind his head. "What'll you do when this is all over? I mean, say we find all the horcruxes, shut up Snape, and get rid of Voldemort. What will you do?"
Hermione chewed the inside of her cheek. She didn't like this game. Ron wanted to play it loads of times during those months on the run. For him, clinging to hope was the easiest way of staying sane in the midst of so much despair. For Hermione, it was just a reminder of how much she had to lose. She started to say as much to Remus before she caught the look in his eyes.
Soft, beautiful Remus didn't deserve a jaded answer tonight.
"That depends, I suppose," she said slowly. "I haven't yet received the results of my N.E.W.T. scores."
He snorted. "You know you're going to get all of them, 'Mione."
"Supposing you're right," she said, "there are a lot of things I could do. Back in my old timeline, I wanted to work in the ministry. I figured it was the easiest way to change the world, by passing laws."
Remus wrinkled his nose. "I can't see you as a bureaucrat."
"Certainly not now that I turn into a werecat each month," she said, dourly. "That actually throws a wrench into most of the other career paths that might have once interested me: healing, researching, even something like owning a bookshop would be much harder thanks to how prejudiced people are."
"What about teaching?"
"Teaching? Like at Hogwarts?"
"Unless you'd rather cross the channel and teach the Frenchies," he said with a grin. "Dumbledore didn't seem to mind us there as students, why not as teachers? You just did such a great job filling in for Prof. Steeley. I thought you liked that."
"It was alright."
"Ok, it was just a thought."
Hermione sensed that he had more on his mind so she waited. After a few beats, he continued. "I didn't just mean a career. What else will you do? I mean… will you want to stick around? Somewhere close by?"
The corners of her lips curled up ever so slightly. "You mean, am I still going to be around for there to be an 'us?'"
He shrugged. "Just a thought."
"You're having a lot of thoughts tonight," she said, looking away to the top of the treeline, outlined against the now nearly black sky.
"And you're dodging a lot of questions."
"Remus, I-"
Just then, a soft hoot came from above them. A stocky, light-colored owl was circling the sky above them, a thin scroll clutched in its claws.
Delighted with the handy distraction, Hermione stood and whistled it down. The bird fell into a graceful drive before perching on a nearby branch. It held the scroll, labelled Hermione Granger in a fine script, out to her.
But Remus snatched it before she could. "Answer the question first."
"Remus, don't be a child. Let me see-" she said, trying to reach around his broad chest, but he held the scroll high above her head. She reached up on her tip-toes, but he was so damn tall! "Remus!"
"No. You always sidestep the conversations you don't like or just start spouting ridiculous lies. For once I want to talk to you and feel like I'm getting a straight answer. Do you see an "us" when all the Voldemort stuff is over?"
"James was right this morning, Remus. I'm not the priestess of all knowledge. I don't have a crystal ball, and even if I did, divination is a load of crap."
Remus threw the scroll over his shoulder and grabbed her by the hips with both arms. His voice dropped an octave. "First of all, yes you are and it's ridiculously hot. But secondly, this isn't about predicting. This is about feeling. What do your feelings tell you, Hermione?"
The question was hard to answer however, considering she seemed to have lost all feeling everywhere except her hips and the small of her back. Remus didn't seem quite sure what to do with his fingers, and his frequent, unsure wringing kept brushing them against her thin shirt. She needed a clear head to answer him.
She tried to make some space between them. "It's not that simple, Remus. Feelings are so fleeting, and even if I got all my N.E.W.T.s and Voldemort was gone and you and I were just frolicking on our own private island-"
"You're right," Remus said abruptly, releasing her from his arms and running his hands exasperatedly through his hair, "forget about feelings. Let's talk about choice. Love is a choice, after all."
Hermione froze. "Who said anything about love?"
Remus said nothing.
"Remus?" Hermione asked, dread pooling in her stomach. "Remus, what are you asking me?"
Remus closed his eyes. He looked like he was biting his lower lip, hard.
"Do you really not know?" he whispered.
"No, I don't! First you were talking about careers and now you just used the word love and you're not making any sense at all. Just tell me what you're thinking." She knew playing dumb came with risks, but he couldn't possibly be thinking about what she thought he was. Right?
He sighed. "At this point, I don't even know. Why don't we just go to bed? I'm tired."
"Oh come on, don't be like that. Let's just be grown ups and talk about whatever this is."
"No, really. I don't think I want to know anymore. It's okay," he said, turning away from her and clearing his throat. He didn't wait to see if she'd follow him.
She didn't.
Alone on the hilltop, Hermione was trying to take a deep breath. Had she just ruined everything? Whether or not love was in the mix, Remus was pack. Nothing could come before that, because destroying Voldemort depended on it. Why did Remus have to start talking about love now? She could handle flirting, touching, even a little hero-worship. But love… love required commitment. Stability. Sanity. It would have been hard enough for two werecreatures to handle love under the best circumstances, never mind in the middle of fighting a war.
Love was a luxury. And she couldn't afford love right now.
She kicked a clod of dirt, angry at the universe for being unfair, and angry that she had to be the one to bring Remus down to earth. It wasn't his fault he was being swept up in his emotions, Hermione reasoned. He'd never fought in a war before. He didn't realize how much love could break you under these circumstances. Love made you vulnerable.
That night she took veritaserum and told him everything about being from the future, he'd said that he needed to protect her, always, even if it was from himself. Right now, it looked more like Hermione had to do the protecting for his own good.
She realized the dirt clod landed on the white scroll. Feeling like an idiot for forgetting about it in such a short time, she reached down to pick it up. Her eyes scanned the parchment and she let out a mirthless laugh.
She'd earned every N.E.W.T.
A/N: It's been a while, friends. Nearly two years since the last update, in fact. Believe it or not, I think about this beautiful, ridiculous, monstrous story constantly. It was always a matter of time before I got back to it. Turns out having a child really does take over your life (in the best way possible).
A sincere thank you to the dozens and dozens of you who left reviews while I was off, taking care of life. You're 100% the only reason I've come back at all. (That and seeing this story so close to 100K but not quite has been infuriating me for too long.)
I won't promise an update schedule. I can't promise a finish date. But I promise this story will be finished. It means far too much to me to let die, and for reasons I don't quite understand, it seems to mean something to you as well. Enjoy.
