A/N: *teehee*
xx-Kitten
All I Remember
By Kittenshift17
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friday 16th November, 1979 – 9:35PM
Hermione's Flat, Diagon Alley
Dinner had long since been eaten and Sirius had excused himself before dessert to attend a date of his own. Peter too had made excuses and been on his way after heartily tucking into the meal she'd prepared. Charlus and Dorea Potter had proven to be the most interesting people Hermione had met to date and she'd been a little sad to see them go when they too had excused themselves before dessert. Knowing they were intruding on Remus's date had left everyone feeling the need to be on their way after enjoying the meal and celebrating James and Lily's engagement with much toasting and many words of praise.
James and Lily, obviously more smitten with one another than ever, had just said their goodbyes and Floo'd to Lily's flat. Hermione knew they had much to discuss knowing they had a baby on the way and a shot-gun wedding to plan. She smiled at Remus over the rim of her wine glass as she watched him move from the dining table to the couch after flicking his wand to set the dishes washing themselves in the kitchen. She'd just served him up a hefty slice of the chocolate lava pudding she knew had once been his favourite and he'd already had the spoon in his mouth as he lowered himself down to sit on the couch.
She smiled softly to herself as he groaned at the flavour, his eyes having lit up at the sight and smell of the dessert she'd prepared just for him.
"Bloody hell, gealai," he murmured when he opened his eyes, having swallowed his mouthful. "I could get used to this."
Hermione grinned, looking at her feet as her cheeks turned pink with happiness at the praise.
"I'm glad you like it. It's not too rich, is it? I was worried that it might be a bit too rich," Hermione admitted.
"It's perfect," he assured her. "I could live on nothing but this for the rest of time. And I know I said that about the roast, but I take it back about the roast because this is so delicious that if it were possible to come from the flavour of food, I would."
Hermione snorted in amusement at his blunt, but complimentary words.
"And that was crass," he confessed, frowning. "Sorry. I'm too used to interacting with the lads."
"I can't say I mind," Hermione shrugged. "But I'm pleased you like it. There's plenty more."
"Don't tell me that, or I might actually eat my weight in cake," he confessed.
"Do you want more wine to go with it, or would you prefer tea?" Hermione asked.
"Maybe tea?" he asked. "The wine will taste sour after something so sweet."
Hermione nodded, flicking her wand at the kettle before crossing the room to drop down onto the couch beside him. She enjoyed it entirely too much when he continued to make little sounds of delight with almost everyone mouthful as he ate his dessert. If she was being honest, Hermione could hardly take her eyes off him. So young and so handsome, he was a delight to the senses, but the fact that he was so gloriously alive was what captivated her. Even as she watched him, the haunting image of him dead on that stone floor after the battle flashed behind her eyes and Hermione had to fight the urge she had to crawl into his lap and beg him to always be safe and happy and wonderfully alive.
"So," he said, eyeing her when she'd fixed them both a cup of tea and returned to the couch, sitting beside him and handing him a second helping of dessert though he hadn't asked for one. "Tell me about you, Hermione Granger."
Hermione blinked at him, realising suddenly that for all that they'd spent two wonderful evenings together, they hadn't traded some of the basics.
"There's not much to know, Remus," Hermione shrugged. "I was a good girl at school. Studious and boring. Did my homework on time. Didn't get into any trouble. You know, dull, really."
"I doubt very much that you've ever been dull, gealai," he disagreed. "What do you do for fun?"
"Read," Hermione admitted, blushing.
Remus chuckled. "Well, what do you like to read? I can't get a handle on your tastes from your collection. It seems like you've got a bit of everything."
"I do," Hermione smiled, looking around her shelves fondly. "I'm muggleborn, you see? I don't know if I mentioned that earlier. But as a result, I had a lot of catching up to do when I was admitted into the magical world at the age of eleven. I wanted to know everything. It's why I ended up invisible at school. No one noticed me because I was too busy burying my nose in whichever books I could get my hands on to learn all about the history of the magical world, and the way the government worked and how everyone interacted and the etiquette of being a witch. And then there were the subjects… Gods, Remus, the subjects! There are just so many and I'm sure that even if I devoted my life to studying them all, I'd still never know everything there is to know about the magical world and all its many secrets."
Remus grinned at her.
"Which one is your favourite?" he asked.
"Which subject? At school my best subject was probably Transfiguration," Hermione admitted. "Being muggleborn, I'd grown up thinking that magic was about turning one thing into something else. Little boys into warty toads, bouquets into birds, that sort of thing. I wanted to know how to do it for myself, and there were so many rules about what could safely be transfigured from one thing into another. I've always been good with rules, if I'm honest. I might put a toe out of line for the greater good when the need arises, but for the most part I function best with a strict set of guidelines on how to behave."
"Not me," Remus shook his head. "Though you probably suspected as much, given who I'm friends with."
"Oh, yes," Hermione grinned. "I had noticed that during your time at Hogwarts, you and the boys got into no small amount of trouble every week."
Remus smiled sheepishly. "I was the most rule-abiding, I'll have you know."
Hermione lifted her eyes to meet his for a moment, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Somehow, I doubt that, Remus Lupin. I think that James and Sirius might've been the ones who got caught more often, but you rarely abide by anyone's rules. You just know how to avoid getting caught."
His wicked grin showed off the fact that he was very much a Marauder at heart and Hermione wanted to sing with happiness at the sight of him this way.
"It's a gift," he said with a wink, looking entirely too wicked for anyone's good. Hermione was certain she was going to ruin her knickers when he was sitting there looking so deliciously handsome.
"One I'm sure you take shameless advantage of," Hermione chuckled. "What about you, Remus? What do you do for fun?"
Remus paused with his spoon in his mouth, looking like he was rather surprised by the question. Hermione watched him as he chewed the bite of cake and swallowed it.
"Do you know, I've never actually thought about it before," he said finally, looking rather amused with himself. "I suppose I read, as well. I read, and I drink with the lads, and I let Sirius drag me out with the intention picking up too many birds… I… shite, sorry about that last one."
He looked sheepish, his cheeks turning pink when he realised what he'd said, and Hermione began to laugh at how suddenly contrite he looked.
"I'm hardly going to fault you for having a past, Remus," Hermione chuckled, shaking her head at him fondly before taking a sip of her tea and watching him over the rim of her teacup.
He blinked at her, not seeming to know what to make of the kind of girl who knew he had a past as something of a rake but didn't hold it against him.
"Right," he said, frowning a little. "Well… Yeah, that's about it, really. Reading. Drinking. Sometimes, when James has a game on, we get free tickets and go along to watch him play. The rest of the time I suppose I'm just working, you know?"
Hermione nodded.
"It's strange really, how the routine of a stable job somehow seems to take up most of you free time, isn't it? I've been a bit out of practice, actually, so this last week was a bit of a strain, if I'm being honest," she said.
"For me too," Remus nodded. "It's hardly an exciting or glamourous job like being an Auror or a Quidditch player for one of the league teams. Selling cauldrons is the definition of dull, though I did manage to get into a heated argument with Snivellus when he stormed into the shop the other day muttering about cheap copper cauldrons that melted under any kind of strain when he was brewing something with Mugwort in it. Should've seen his face when he spotted me selling the cauldrons."
Remus laughed, clearly recalling with a somewhat vicious glee that he'd had a fight with Snape in the shop.
"Snivellus?" Hermione asked, feigning ignorance of the nickname's origin and owner.
"Oh, right," Remus said. "Sorry, love. Snape. He's taken up the brewing job at the Apothecary on the Alley. We don't get on, see? He wasn't too pleased to see me."
"After some of the things the Marauders did to him at school, I can't say I blame him," Hermione said, still eyeing him curiously, unable to wrench her eyes away from him when he looked so at ease and so handsome.
Remus raised his eyebrows at her.
"You disapprove of our antics?" he asked. "You realise that Snape's a Death Eater, don't you?"
Hermione nodded.
"I know," she said. "And I expect that it might, in no small part, be due to the fact that a rubbish and abusive home-life, coupled with being harassed and bullied throughout his adolescence led him down that path."
Remus frowned at her for a long moment.
"You think we were too hard on him? Have you met him? He's the most vicious sod on the planet."
"Rather like a mutt that's been kicked too many times," Hermione sighed. "And a good number of those kicks came from you and your friends, Remus. I'm not excusing his interest in Dark magic, or the path he's chosen to walk, but I think it's rather prudent to point out that if you'd all been a little nicer to him, he might've just gone on to be an ugly, brooding Potioneer, rather than a Death Eater on top of those other things."
"You think we pushed him to join You Know Who?" Remus frowned. "Us?"
"I think your treatment of him certainly helped. I'm not saying you're wholly responsible, of course. His place in Slytherin alongside blood-bigots like Malfoy, Lestrange, the Carrows, Mulciber, Travers and Macnair certainly didn't help matters. They're rather like sharks, and if you don't turn shark yourself then you're just blood in the water and the newest sport of the hour, from what I can see. He'd likely have benefited from solid friendships with people like you and James and Sirius, you know? It's no secret that he and Lily were friends a long time."
"He called Lily a mudblood, Hermione," Remus argued, frowning at her.
"In a moment of embarrassment and anger with James and Sirius goading and hexing him, even going so far as to strip him half-naked in front of half the school. He lashed out irrationally because it probably wounded his delicate male ego to always have a girl coming to his defence. I'm certain the four of you taunted his manhood to have to hide behind the defence of a girl a time or two."
"You're saying that you'd have forgiven your best friend if he'd called you a mudblood?" Remus asked. "You think it's alright he lashed out in anger to spit such an ugly racial slur? You've seen firsthand what that kind of bigotry can lead to, Hermione."
He reached for her scarred forearm, frowning.
"I have," she agreed. "I endured a horrific ordeal at the hands of blood maniacs, and I got through it alright. Lily, on the other hand, had the word flung at her once and refused to ever speak to her very best friend ever again, Remus. That would be like James or Sirius calling you a were…."
Hermione stopped abruptly when she realised what she'd been about to say, seeing the way Remus's whole body tensed in horror. She frowned down at her teacup for a long moment as the silence stretched between them, Remus not daring to acknowledge what she'd almost called him and Hermione sensing that if she pushed that issue right now he'd walk out the door and never speak to her again.
"My point is, Snape called her a mudblood, yes. And that was wrong. He shouldn't have said it. The rest of the term he spent sleeping outside our bloody common room, begging everyone who passed to please fetch Lily for him while he apologised over and over again to the portrait of the Fat Lady was more than a little pathetic, I'll admit, but it was obviously the more heartfelt sentiment of the two," Hermione said quietly. "I don't want to fight about it, I'm just saying that maybe you and the rest of the Marauders ought to be a little nicer to Snape."
"He's still a Death Eater, Hermione. He made his choice, and he'd hex any one of us dead in the street if he had the chance."
"Perhaps he would," Hermione allowed.
Silence stretched between them again after that, and Hermione suspected that no matter what she said about Snape, her almost admitting to knowing he was a werewolf was weighing on his mind. She suspected he'd very much like to know if she actually knew his secret, or if she'd been bluffing, but he didn't dare to ask.
"Would you like some more cake?" she offered, the silence stretching so long that it grew awkward.
"No, thanks," he answered quietly, and Hermione suspected he'd lost his appetite.
She cast around the room for something else to say, realising he'd done what she hadn't seen him do since someone attending Headquarters for the first time realised he was a werewolf. He was closing himself off, as if to distance himself from the impending cruelty and revulsion and fear he expected to have slung at him.
"Well…." She sighed, getting to her feet and moving over to her bookshelf, spying a book she recalled reading with him once and pouring over for it's contradicting theories on quantum transfiguration. "This date certainly didn't turn out as I expected."
Remus laughed bitterly.
"What were you expecting?" he asked a little bitterly. "A suave and gentile dinner with a dashing man to sweep you off your feet."
She could tell from the way he sneered the word 'man' that he didn't consider himself one.
"Actually, I envisioned snogging you against the counters and having you feed my titbits of roast and vegetables in between passionate snogs," Hermione replied, pulling the book off the shelf and turning to face him once more, frowning when she saw that he was on his feet and looking like he meant to leave.
"Is that so?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her doubtfully.
Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
"It was a toss up between that and us burning the roast when we got too carried away shagging on the kitchen floor to take it out of the oven," she said, tracing her eyes over him and catching the way his eyes threaded with the gold of the wolf all over again.
"And instead James put the rest of us to shame by impregnating and proposing to his date," Remus replied. "I hope he hasn't set the bar for your expectations, gealai."
Hermione's lips twitched.
"When the time comes that I want you to impregnate and propose to me, you'll know, Remus," she answered, stepping closer whilst holding the book.
"When?" he asked, catching her phrasing. "Not if?"
Hermione grinned widely at him.
"I don't insist on dating just anyone when a hot shag is offered in lieu of all that messy romance, Remus," Hermione told him seriously. "If I wasn't in this thinking seriously about a future with you, I'd have ravished you silly last weekend and unceremoniously shoved you out the door when I was done with you. I don't cook for just anyone, you know?"
Remus's response was to bury his hands in her hair, lowering his mouth to hers to steal a dizzying kiss that stole her breath and drenched her knickers all in one. His tongue swept into her mouth hotly, tracing the length of hers and coaxing her into kissing him back as her head swam with pleasure. He kissed he like he might never see her again, and Hermione tossed the book she clutched down onto one of the couch cushions so she could pull him closer.
Merlin, he kissed her like he couldn't get enough of her and the thought crossed her mind that he might be planning to seduce her out of her knickers this evening before disappearing. She'd revealed her hand just a little too much by arguing that their treatment of Snape had been unfair, and she'd worsened it by almost admitting to knowing about his lycanthropy. She suspected that Remus was going to run the minute he'd shagged her, and Hermione found herself caught somewhere between desperately wanting to shag him into oblivion, hoping he might come back for more if she made it memorable enough; and wanting to keep him on the hook a bit longer by letting him get so far before hitting the brakes. She didn't want to be a tease, and in truth she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop herself if he was willing to ravish her right there on the couch cushions, but she didn't want to risk losing him either. She'd gotten one date out of him, and it'd turned slightly sour.
What if she shagged him and he didn't come back for more? Hermione didn't think she could stand that.
Pushing him away before they could go beyond the point of no return, Hermione blinked dazedly at him. He emitted a soft growl, clearly not impressed to be stopped, but Hermione held her ground. Her breath came in ragged gasps and she met his gaze boldly.
"What happened to ravishing me on the kitchen floor and forgetting to take the roast out of the oven?" he asked huskily, his breath short and his cheeks flushed with colour.
"If I let you have me tonight, I'll never see you again," Hermione replied breathlessly.
"You still doubt me?" he asked. "I showed up for our date, didn't I?"
Hermione's lips pulled up.
"You did," she acknowledged. "And I'm very pleased you did. But you're going to run unless I keep dangling what you want in front of you. I've irritated you with what I said before, and once you get your kicks, you're gone."
"I'm not just going to use you, Hermione," Remus frowned at her.
"I know," she smiled. "I'm not going to let you."
He shook his head at her slowly.
"Why are you so convinced you want to date someone like me?" he wanted to know. "I'm hardly the man you need, Hermione."
"Not someone like you," she shook her head. "You, Remus. Specifically, you. You're who I want."
His eyes widened a little bit at the bold statement and Hermione hoped she hadn't said too much too soon. Hell, she'd already thrown caution to the wind by snogging him in the first place. It was no secret that she was attracted to him.
"You won't want me when you find out what I'm really like," he warned her, his secret clearly tormenting him.
Hermione's laugh, when it came, was a little bitter.
"You think you're the only one with secrets, Remus Lupin?" she asked in a low whisper, turning away from him and moving across the room, into the kitchen. "You think you're the only one afraid that when the other learns the truth, they'll run? Believe me, love, there are skeletons in my closet I'm afraid to have you find. Scarier ones than yours."
"I don't have skeletons in my closet," Remus replied quietly. "Just a monster under the bed."
Hermione almost laughed at the poorly concealed werewolf reference.
"Better that than a head full of faces you can't forget and a sea of nightmares just waiting to pull you under, love," Hermione said, boiling the kettle one more time and setting about making a cup of tea.
"Nightmares about the people who did this to your arm?" Remus asked, coming up behind her and carefully moulding himself against her back.
The position was so reminiscent of the night he'd marked her during their Horcrux hunt that if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was right back there in the kitchen in Grimmauld Place. What she wouldn't give to have to moment back, knowing Harry and Ron were upstairs and just a shout away. Merlin, even knowing he'd married Tonks and was expecting a baby, if she could have that moment back, Hermione would've turned and pulled him into her arms. She would've let him do more than just grind his erection on her arse. Hell, maybe if she had, he might not have died, and she might never have had to hurl herself back through time.
"Sometimes," Hermione nodded, closing her eyes and leaning back against his chest. "Sometimes nightmares of things I hope you'll never witness, Remus. Things I'd kill to protect you and your friends from. There are demons in my head just waiting to rip this world apart, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep them locked up tight. To keep you safe."
"Me?" he asked, nosing at the side of her neck and pushing aside the neckline of her cardigan. She curled her arms up around the back of his neck, threading her fingers into his hair and smiling a little at the way he rubbed himself against her bum, letting her feel how badly he wanted her, no matter the seriousness of their discussion.
"You, Remus Lupin," Hermione whispered. "The monster under your bed's got nothing on the demons in my head. All the claws and fangs in the world couldn't save you if my demons got loose."
Hermione hissed between her teeth when Remus nuzzled her shoulder before fitting his teeth over the mark he'd left on her skin, and biting down hard.