Chapter Text
Usually, waking up to the sun shining in his eyes would have elicited naught but the most put upon of groans from Sirius Black. Of course, on those few occasions he could, with any clarity, remember waking up to the sun shining in his eyes, he had been gloriously hung over, so his disgruntled response was understandable. But it was not to be repeated this morning. With the war over and his name cleared, he was determined to finally start living his life, rather than simply trying to wring the barest amount of pleasure and peace from it as possible. Also, the years spent on the run and – more often than not – in his animagus form had caused rather a few canine traits to remain with him even when he was his human self. This is to say that, his first instinct on waking was to roll on his back, stretch out, and just enjoy the warm patch the sun had cast upon his bed. Sadly, this too was not be, for mere seconds after awakening –
“Of all the bloody Gryffindor things to do!” Remus nearly howled with what one could be forgiven for mistaking as anger.
Having not yet fully wrestled back control of his responses from Padfoot – or, perhaps, simply having shifted from his Padfoot persona to that of the adolescent dilatant who had existed prior to his twelve year stint in Azkaban, which he had been doing so well at conquering but was still as much part of him as any one of his limbs – Sirius let out whine of both disappointment and disdain. Remus had been eliciting such a response from him more often of late, and Sirius had an unshakable feeling that the reasons for past occurrences and today’s interruption were one and the same. Still, he was curious to confirm his suspicions, and so rolled out of bed, tied on his dressing gown, and made his way down to the library where – with a level of predictability befitting of his bookish tendences and contradictory to Remus’ shared past as a Marauder – he was certain he would find his friend.
Upon arriving in the room he had once hated with the level of fiery passion only a true Gryffindor could muster for something as innocuous as a room full of books, he might have greeted the expected sight of Remus in his faded cardigan and trousers (cup of hot tea still steaming on the small table near his favorite seat) with what many would argue was an offensive level of factual dismissal. However, there was something about the sight that was out of the ordinary. Between the frenzied look in his eye and the death grip he was asserting on the letter in his hand – written on familiar parchment, and thus affirming Sirius’ suspicions as to the reason for all this hullabaloo – Remus looked far more worried today than Sirius had seen him in many a month; nearly as worried as he had retrospectively been when Harry and his friends had revealed the true nature of their little expedition during the war. Sirius was mildly embarrassed to admit that this worried him too. Though Remus was not the one he was beginning to worry about. He did his best not to reveal this, since he knew it would not help the situation at hand. Having now awoken enough to successfully place his true self in control, he did his best to scrape a semblance calm together as he sat on the couch and asked the only question that was on his mind (even if he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to it).
“So, what’s Hermione done this time?”
Sirius had already had a quite clear idea that the contents of the letter was shocking enough that it was impossible for anyone, let alone a man of Remus’ intellectual prowess, to forget so quickly, Yet, he was surprised to see just how much the intensity of Remus’ frenzied worry increased as his mind was even further focused onto what he just read.
“Only bloody run off the west coast of Ireland.” As it was earlier, his tone now was filled with an emotion that sounded rather like anger, but Sirius knew it was not. He could not remember a single time he had heard Remus talk of Harry’s bushy-haired friend with any emotion even close to anger. Unfortunately, the statement itself did nothing to help Sirius maintain his false calmness.
“What?!” He only narrowly escaped shouting his exclamation in Remus’ face, as his friend had already approached with the intention of handing Sirius the letter he had received. Sirius as good as snatched it away, as if he were a niffler and it was made of gold leaf instead of parchment.
Neither man had seen the clever witch in just over a month. That anyone had managed to catch her before she left was as good as a miracle. While Molly Weasley’s would have been the first name mentioned had anyone asked who discovered Hermione trying to make her departure and wrangled the cause of it out of her, as she still saw each member of the Order’s youngest generation as children (despite their many heated and valid protests to this view) and so kept her nose quite thoroughly in their business, she had likely been too busy at the time to notice that the girl was acting strangely. After all, she was the ringmaster of each and every one of the veritable circus performances that were collectively known as the Weekly Weasley Family Dinners, which were now more like community gatherings for all those who had been most directly involved with the Order of the Phoenix during the lead up to and fighting of the Second Wizarding War. That’s not to mention the fact that Hermione’s strange behavior had been mild enough that it went unnoticed by most of the guests who had not been nearly as preoccupied. But to Sirius, the fact it was Remus who managed it was not nearly as surprising as it would be to anyone else.
Remus’ year as a professor at Hogwarts had not only led him into a close relationship with Harry, but also one with the girl that they both considered to be Harry’s true best friend. While she had somewhat ruined the fun of Sirius’ attempt at giving his godson a Christmas gift for the first time in twelve years, it did not take much explanation for either he or Remus to see that her care for Harry was greater than that of anyone besides the two of them, including Ronald Weasley (despite him having been the first friend Harry made at Hogwarts). Before this incident, Remus had taken notice of the care she took in both her own academics and that of her friends. In this way, she reminded him of himself. Truly, the only difference he could see in her personality and that which he had possessed during his own years at Hogwarts was that she had, at first, seemed more comfortable and confident in herself than he had ever been. She had never once tried to hide who she was – that is, a muggleborn and more than a bit of a swot. However, it was not five minutes into their first conference – which she had requested so that she might get some advise on how to improve her writing, having earned excellent marks for information but less than excellent marks for elaboration and argumentation on her most recent essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts – when Remus deduced that this was, somewhat, an elaborate and well-maintained ruse.
Hermione was not at all ashamed of her muggle origins, but she was also keenly aware of the disadvantages, social and academic, that they presented, and was doing her best to compensate when, in Remus’ opinion, she needn’t have done so. There was not a single one of her professors that would say anything negative regarding her intellectual capability or express anything but confidence in her prospects as a member of Wixen British Society – even the late Professor Severus Snape, though his commentary was rather begrudgingly made and fraught with obfuscation (which was more understandable now that his secret status as a double agent had been revealed to the public at large). By the end of their conference, Remus was imbued with a sense of new purpose.
Of course, his primary purpose in being at Hogwarts was to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts in a manner that not only ensured his students performed well in class, but could also perform well in the real world (because, with how things were going, they would need to); his secondary, and more personal, purpose was to connect with Harry and, in turn, connect him with his parents. At that point though, Remus had gained a . . . well, it may not be grammatically correct to call it a “second secondary purpose”, but it certainly did not feel emotionally correct to call it a “tertiary purpose”. Either way, he wanted to help Hermione grow beyond her sense of inadequacy, for he not only sympathized and wished to save her the pain he had felt in his own adolescence, but also hopefully curtail the pain it might cause for her in adulthood. Her tolerance and unwarranted forgiveness of the disrespect, nearing abuse, that Ron would often spew at her, and that Harry did not correct despite the doubt and regret that shown clearly in his eyes, indicated that she might find herself doing so for others – most frighteningly, romantic partners – who threw such invective (and perhaps more painful projectiles) at her in the future. For reasons that he refused to admit but still somehow knew were caused by senses beyond just sympathy, he felt duty-bound (but not by the duty of a mere professor) to go this distance for her.
As such, from then on, whenever she approached him for help of any sort, he did his best to help her build her confidence in both her academic and personal judgment, and to help her hold others accountable for making amends when they were the ones in the wrong, rather than simply forgiving them without receiving a proper apology and then allowing them to continue taking advantage of her good nature and desperation for acceptance. He had some successes, the fruits of which Hermione clearly liked as much as he did, for she remained in contact with him even after his resignation. She clearly tried her best to keep her letters as academically driven as possible, but the more of them she wrote, the more of her personality and personal life she revealed. By the time she had left with Harry and Ron on their little expedition, Hermione and Remus’s relationship had developed far deeper than that of the average mentee and mentor, which they were both happy about, but refused to acknowledge for fear of the reproach that would no doubt be erroneously directed toward them (especially by Mrs. Weasley). Still, Sirius, who was more than a bit preoccupied with Harry’s well-being at the time, managed to notice that Remus was similarly pre-occupied with Hermione’s well-being. Over the course of the war, during the relatively few periods of time they had been able to spend together, Sirius had so dedicatedly and with a rather un-Sirius-like level of subtlety managed to weedle enough information out of Remus regarding his and Hermione’s relationship that he was convinced Remus and Moony saw Hermoine the same way he and Padfoot saw Harry: as his pup.
He daren’t mention this Remus in that moment, for God knows how the man would react given his already intentionally, but falsely, dismissive attitude and fully engaged mother hen tendencies. While, in the current moment, Remus would certainly not have tried to dismiss his parental affection for Hermione – as even he, distraught as he was, could deduce that there was no use – Sirius knew this was also not the time to mention it precisely because of Remus’ distress. Instead, he continued to put forth as much calmness as he could, despite the fact that his own sense of distress – though nowhere near as intense as Remus’ – was certainly piqued.
“So, she’s finished clearing out her parents’ home and dental practice. But, in the process of doing so, she’s also discovered something important about herself, and is going to Ireland in search of answers to the questions the discovery has created”, Sirius paraphrased after finishing the letter. “Well, given the uncharacteristic vagueness and succinctness of the writing, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a Gryffindor trying to get away with either doing something that is foolhardy in nature or doing something in a foolhardy way.”
Remus, now sitting in his chair – nearly doubled over himself, with his elbows on his knees and fingers rubbing at his temples and eyes - dropped his head even further and groaned as if he had reached such levels of worry that he was now in physical pain. “Coming from you, the expert in such evasion tactics, that is distinctly not reassuring”
“I didn’t mean it to be reassuring.”
“Then why speak at all?”
“I don’t know.”
All Remus could do in response was let out another groan, though this time Sirius divined a distinct note of annoyance in its tone.
“Look, mate, I understand how you feel, and why you feel it. Honestly, I’m a bit worried as well. But, if she managed to keep herself, Harry, and Ron safe during their little expedition – and God knows what a monumental task that must have been – she can handle a solo excursion to the west coast of Ireland.”
“Are you forgetting that the three of them still ended up getting captured by Snatchers, and that your mad bitch cousin carved a slur into my pup’s arm!” Remus yelled, in a tone that was now most definitely filled with anger – most likely his attempt to rid himself of the no doubt immense burden his worry was placing upon him.
“Whoa, listen to that language out of you!” Sirius exclaimed with no shortage of amusement. Given the abuse Remus had all but confirmed experiencing from his father as a result of being infected with lycanthropy, and the already mild-mannered nature he had inherited from his mother, it was unsurprising to Sirius that the man had, in the past, hardly ever had sufficient confidence or emotional distraction to use such rude language. Whenever he did, it tended to bring at least a bit of joy to his friends for it meant that he was letting loose, even if it was to gripe at and lecture them (as it often was). Since the war, or – more precisely – since killing Fenrir Greyback, that once hard-to-find confidence had come bubbling to the surface more often. Sirius had taken to whispering around about it, suggesting that it was because the act of killing the being that had so violently and vindictively infected him with lycanthropy, and was thus recognized by Moony as both his creator and his abuser, had finally brought the alpha wolf in Remus to the forefront of his personality – if only so that it might get back to Remus, and somehow spur his acceptance of that part of himself. He knew it would make his friend both healthier physically and happier all-round. He had yet to hear Remus make any verbal confirmation as to whether he had heard the rumour or if he believed it, but the fact that, in the months since the end of the war, Sirius had also not heard the man hurl some of his usual insults at himself suggested that, either way, Sirius’ theory was not entirely false. Even more telling was the fact that Remus showed no signs of embarrassment or hesitation after both using such profanity and finally admitting to seeing Hermione as his pup.
However, once the exclamation was made, Remus did retreat to his prior stance of worry, which was accompanied with an unsettling stillness, as if he was now losing himself in his thoughts.
“I don’t know how comforting this is going to be, but I’ll say it anyway – just in case. If she was able to survive that and be as well-adjusted as she seems, I doubt anything she finds or has to face in Ireland will break her.”
“I also don’t know if that’s comforting.” There was little emotion in how Remus said the words, but what was there managed to leave Sirius less concerned about his friend’s state of mind. “Well, I suppose it she needs help, she’ll write.” Remus phrased it as a statement, but he clearly lacked any conviction as to the truth of it. Nor had he managed to successfully shake off or hide any of his worry for Hermione. “Not much I can do else. Oh! Would you look at that, my tea has gone cold. Best go and heat it back up.”
It was clearly a ruse. Firstly, Sirius was well aware that Remus’ magical skill was advanced enough that performing a simple re-heating charm would have been as easy as breathing, even with his current level of agitation. Secondly, Sirius was also well aware that Remus was well aware that the kitchen he was headed towards to reheat his tea – having, until very recently, only served individuals who were not only wixen, but the sort of wixen who were so anti-muggle as to having intentionally made themselves ignorant of the technological advances muggles had made – did not contain a microwave which he could use to reheat his tea. Thirdly and finally, Sirius – though he was nowhere near the tea expert that Remus was – was damn well smart enough to know that the five minutes they had been talking was not long enough for Remus’ tea to have gotten so much as lukewarm, let alone cold.
As such, there was not a spec of surprise in him when he heard the not-so-subtle pop of disapparition that echoed down the hallway. He merely let out a sigh of resignation and set himself to deciding what to do with his day. Perhaps he could go back upstairs and attempt to restart his lazy morning. A loud crash sent that thought shooting from his mind as he remembered that Kreacher existed, and that staying in the house at all meant he might have to deal with the foul thing on his own. He quickly rushed to his room, got dressed in his grimiest work clothes, then apparated to Godric’s Hollow, where his godson seemed to be eternally engaged in the project of rebuilding his family’s cottage (since having helped rebuild Hogwarts Castle a few months earlier had both awakened and failed to sate a newfound enjoyment of manual labor and construction). It couldn’t have been farther from the lazy morning he had thought of having only moments ago, but it would be more pleasant than having to hide from his own house elf in his own home.