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Over Surrey, Hermione had set a Death Eater's broomstick on fire. She sent a disarming charm his way as he careened down from the skies in a splendid ball of flames. She did not know if her last spell hit. In the heat of battle, it could not matter, another Death Eater already took his place.
A day later however, the red blaze was seared at the back of her eyelids, and in the quiet of the Burrow, she thought she could hear the echo of his screams. The night before the wind drowned it out, she was certain, but her mind filled in the blanks with ease.
And here she was now, stalking out of the cupboard turned office, Mad-Eye’s stash of polyjuice potion weighing down her beaded bag no matter the magic she casted upon it. She did not know if the spell hit, but she did know Mad-Eye fell the same way and now there was no body to bury. She kept the bag away from her body as if not touching it would keep her skin from crawling off her bones.
A draft blew in from the window, and she shuddered.
“Who’s there?” She didn’t recognize the voice. She whirled around, wand wildly waving about in the dark. She dimmed the light of her lumos for her little heist, but now, not being able to see past her own hand, she was sorely regretting the decision.
She was about to make the light stronger when someone else did it for her. A little ball of fire flickered in the darkness, and there Remus stood before her, his face carved from cold, hard anger. She stepped back before she could stop herself. After two heart beats, his expression finally gentled, but the wariness didn’t leave her.
Something cracked in his eyes, and he shrunk before her gaze.
“Remus!” she squeaked, voice shrill from fear but also wanting very much to repair what had broken in that last second. “You gave me quite a fright! I could not see very well and thought it was someone else! After last night…”
Her hands shook, and for a moment, she feared Mad-Eye’s vials would come toppling down and reveal her theft for the whole Order to see. Hermione Granger robbing a dead man before his body had even cooled (wherever that may be).
Remus seemed to have bought her tale however. “My apologies," he smiled, although she noticed his eyes were watchful. "I thought I was the only one for late night strolls to the kitchen.”
Her stomach clenched. He was giving her an out, an out she knew she would take, and yet her mind was whirling for a story that would explain why she was skulking in the dark where the headquarters would be.
“I was getting tea,” she said feebly. The kitchen was a considerable distance from the offices, and there would be no need to skulk in the dark for tea. Then seeing the light by the crack of Mad-Eye’s door, the story clicked in her head. “And again, I remembered last night, and I wanted to… It was why I was…”
She let herself trail off, and a hot flood of guilt filled her stomach as the hardness of Remus’s face melted even more. She hugged her bag close to her and kept herself still as if a child once more waiting for the scolding of a teacher. The fabric pressed on her as if it was empty, and she was grateful. She did not know if she could keep lying with such a potent reminder sitting on her chest. She wanted to throw the whole plan away as is, wanted nothing more than to let Mad-Eye keep his peace, but they needed the potion too much and there was neither time nor resources to brew.
She couldn’t bear to look at Remus’s eyes anymore.
Instead, she watched the fire in his hand, impressed at the wandless magic despite her predicament. It crackled between them, filling the corridors with shadows. They danced against the rough grain of the wall, and she followed the motion judiciously. His little flame was a familiar bluebell, and she itched to get a jar and scoop it up just to see if it worked like hers did. She wondered if it hurt.
Suddenly, the flame flashed red. Suddenly, a far away screaming echoed where she stood. Suddenly, the bag was too heavy, and she wanted to tear her skin off.
“Well, would you like to join me?” he asked, voice as warm and kind as it had ever been. His face was all familiar softness now, but it was a stiff look, uncomfortable and wrong in a way she could not quite pinpoint. Hermione let it comfort her anyway. There was a wobble in her knees as she trailed behind him.
In the light of the kitchen, the shadows on Remus lengthened. He had always looked tired and worn, that was true from the moment she met him, sleeping on the Hogwarts Express. There had always been grey in his hair and wrinkles on his forehead. But there was also an energy to him, a gentleness and focus on the world around him.
Tonight, the exhaustion was inextricable from his very being.
Thinking quickly, Hermione rushed into the kitchen, surreptitiously set down her bag in a snug nook, and reached for the tea set before he could. “Please sit and let me,” she said firmly.
"Has Harry told you that I only serve with tea bags?" He chuckled. "I promise to not serve you flavoured water."
A warmth touched Hermione. She knew for a fact Tonks loved fancy tea, something she blamed her mother for. Remus learned to prepare her favourite as a birthday gift, and she bought herself an Everflowing Ewer just so she could show it off. It was exactly one type of tea he learned to make, Tonks confided with a laugh, the rest of them still what she affectionately called leaf juice. But both of them glowed that night, and it was the very first time Hermione saw Remus wear his ring.
It was a week ago. It was aeons ago.
“It’s quite alright,” she said gently. She flicked her wand to the seat and pointedly kept fussing over the tea set.
When he still stood about looking very uncertain, she sighed and changed tack. “I’m still a bit high-strung, you see? I don’t think I can bear to stay still yet.” She said as apologetically as she could make it. At last, he sat, and she took it as a victory even as her stomach curdled further.
She steeped a pot for herself but quickly moved on to the wines, picking up a bottle and transfigured it back to the Dragon’s Breath Fred and George tried to hide. She popped up the cork and quickly set a glass on the mouth. The heavy green smoke had settled itself nicely at the bottom, so she flipped both carefully, finishing her pouring in a clumsier version of the spiral motion Sirius used to do so long ago.
There was crash behind her. She turned sharply to see Remus picking up the pieces of a broken plate. She hastily set down the bottle and the smoke spilled out. “Are you alright?” she called, rushing over to help.
He waved her away. “No need to come over, Hermione. I’ve got it handled,” he replied, voice odd and faraway. “Please keep on with the tea. Although I didn’t expect you to have a taste for strong liquor.My teabags wouldn’t have compared.”
She waffled a moment more before giving in and returning to her preparations.”Oh it’s not for me. You don’t like tea very much,” she said, a bit bewildered at the question. “Dragon’s Breath is your favourite is it not? I knew Fred and George smuggled some and figured you would like that better.”
She lit up the smoke with her wand before any more could escape. The spark travelled down the spiral, leaving in its trail a fiery red liquid with gorgeous chocolate nibs. It looked like magma she thought, setting the glass in front him. He stared at it for such a long moment, she thought she had pushed him too far. Then he reached out and gingerly grasped the drink.
“It is,” he replied in a genial voice, once more sounding familiar and foreign all at once. “Thank you, Hermione.”
“Of course,” she replied. The one time she saw him fast asleep in Grimmauld Place, it was with a glass perched on the arm of a sofa and Sirius’s hand touching the back of his. She had never seen him look younger. It was the one drink Sirius could not stand and the only one Remus ever conceded to. Sirius never failed to pour the drink perfectly. “It’s not a problem at all,” she continued, voice a bit wet. “Fred and George stocked so many, they impressed even Mad-.”
She choked. Suddenly, the beaded bag was all she could see. She was shivering as if she had just passed a ghost, and she wanted to curl and hide as if there was ever any escaping Moody’s evil eye.
“How are you?” Remus asked quietly. “Yesterday was quite difficult I imagine?”
She fussed more with her tea, knowing full well she only needed to wait.
How does one even begin to answer that? Of course it was, but she wasn’t the one who got hurt, wasn’t the one left behind, wasn’t the one who died. There were red flames seared behind her eyelids, but she wasn’t the one who fell in a ball of fire. She tried to disarm a man falling to his death, and she didn’t know what outcome she was hoping for.
She thought the old witch hunts, magic turning fire into a faint tickle and nothing more. The Death Eater would have felt every moment the flame licked at his skin, burned alive, charred until not even his loved ones would recognize him. For a moment, she hoped he crashed to death instead.
And then her mind went to her parents, hung upside-down like the Roberts were so many years ago, bobbed up and down like cat toys to the howls of a captive audience. Rage seared within her, poison in her veins. A dead Death Eater would be one less that would harm anyone else, and a small, cold voice in her head cheered at the job well done.
Hermione vomited in the sink. She wanted to flay off her skin, to burn her hands until she remembered why people burning alive was a wretched, horrific thing. There were knives in guts, acid in her throat - she welcomed it all.
Was this what it felt like when your soul tore itself apart?
She was vaguely aware of the whistling of the teapot, aware of the scraping of a chair. Remus shut off the stove and hovered by her elbow, making soothing noises before leading her to sit when she finally finished. He prepared her tea, and she watched as he put the wrong number of sugar cubes, put milk when she didn’t want any. She didn’t correct him. There was still bile on her tongue.
“What happened last night?” he asked instead, gently placing her tea before her.
She watched dispassionately as he toyed with the glass she prepared for him, as he took a sip and winced. He said it was his favourite drink, but it was Sirius who used to pour it for him and Sirius who he fell asleep in front of the fire with. Sirius who was the last of his friends and Sirius who was now dead. It was another thing she got wrong, and exhaustion seemed to burrow itself in her bones.
He waited her out, and at long last, she answered, reciting the past night’s events as if he was still her teacher and she was still in his class. The role was familiar and comfortable, and Remus always knew how to ask the right questions. For a moment, she let them pretend to be people they no longer were.
She spoke of the Death Eaters she fought, of the fire on the broom and the last spell she casted, of how she feared she might have killed someone, of how she might have killed someone the way Mad-Eye died. By the end of the tale, she was sobbing to her cup begging for forgiveness that Remus had no right to give.
Still, the beaded bag tucked in the nook haunted her. Still, she felt the eyes boring into her soul, so sure they could see all the places it torn. Her body shook from the weight of her secrets, her chest overfilled and hollowed out at once. Secrets were taking up the space where her lungs should be, and she could no longer breathe.
And yet, Remus sat there, gentle eyes watching her with a strange kind of sadness that flickered about as if he was trying and failing to tuck it away.
“What do you think would happen if he did die, Hermione?” he asked, voice quiet but strong, sure in a way nothing is anymore. He wasn’t wearing his ring, but he played with the spot where it should be.
I would be a monster, she almost said. It would tear my soul apart and I would deserve it.
But she remembered just in time that Remus fought two wars. That his boggart was the moon, and they lived in a world where people feared him. She remembered the way he shrunk when she stepped away, and she couldn’t bring herself to be honest. No one could know about how she knew of murders and souls anyway. “He would be one less person to hunt us down, one less person who would hurt muggles. Or anyone else.”
Her own voice sounded foreign to her. Dead. Remus was still looking at her with such shocking gentleness, and she wished more than anything that he wouldn’t. She didn’t wonder though. Remus was a gentle man, but she could not forget the way he was willing to murder an old friend. Nor could she forget the way she didn’t stop him.
Instinctively, she knew he understood, knew the words she swallowed. It was damnation.
“Professor, I…How…” The old title stumbled on her tongue, suddenly feeling too small for a war so large. Then she steeled herself, drew all of her Gryffindor courage to poke at wounds she knew hurt. She had to know. “How do you live with it?”
“You were doing so well, Hermione,” he said with a small laugh. “I’m just Remus now, remember? It's been years since I was your professor.”
She blushed, and then her stomach dropped as if she missed a step, as if she was back on the thestral and freefalling in the skies.
“Of course, Re-” His name died on her throat anyway. His lips twitched but he let her little slip be.
“As for your question, my life, it’s…” He flexed his hand as if stopping himself from touching his nonexistent ring. “It’s been what I can make it, given who - given everything.”
Then his gaze travelled to the staircase, hand drifting back to the invisible ring as if unable to stay away. In a breath, he softened. “I live because there are many who deserve… deserve everything. A good world, long lives, and happy futures. I want that future. I want that world without monsters.”
There was wistfulness to his tone that cracked something within Hermione. Suddenly, it was like there was a massive gaping wound on her chest. “You deserve that world too,” she rasped out, unable to stop herself. She thought of the man in the ball of fire, of the spell she casted almost in an almost absent-minded manner. She willed him to believe her, desperation sinking its claws where the gaping wound in her chest was.
He smiled at her then, that same stiff smile from when the night began. But there was no longer any comfort in it. Hermione could no longer see past the ill fit. "You're young. Too young to be carrying these burdens, I wish it wasn't like this. But I believe you will find your own place in this war. Your own reason to keep going on, to carry what you must, to keep fighting - it will be hard, it will be everyday. But you have friends by your side to carry that weight with you."
She thought she saw his smile curl into a bitter, ugly thing, but then the light shifted and it was gone. “Thank you… Remus,” she croaked. “I…I think I’ll head to bed now. You have certainly given me a lot to think about.”
She tried for a smile, but it was as if her muscles had forgotten the gesture. She figured this must be what Remus felt like.
“Good night then, Hermione,” he whispered before disappearing into the dark corridor, where he was marked only by his handful of bluebell flames. She forgot to ask.
It took a few minutes for Hermione to move, eyes watching the steam of her tea dissipate into nothingness. Then she grabbed her bag from where she tucked it safe. Somehow, it was even heavier than before, the strap cutting into her shoulder. She stumbled a few steps when she stood. When she lit her wand, the blaze behind her eyes flared too, but she paid it no mind.
Their glasses were left untouched that night.