Archive of Our Own

“Leave it, Hermione,” Harry said. He glanced up at her over his glasses, and she noted that the lens over his left eye had a small crack in the corner.

Honestly, you’d think he’d have perfected the charm to fix them after all these years, she thought, trying not to frown at him when she held her hand out pointedly.

“Merlin, you’re worse than Molly sometimes, you know,” he said, shaking his head and squinting as he removed his glasses, handing them to her with a petulant sulk.

“Reparo,” she whispered, not even needing her wand anymore for most simple spells. Hermione really did attempt to hold her smirk back when the prescriptive glass, as well as a few chips in the frames, instantly righted themselves.

“Show off,” Harry muttered when she gave them back.

“It’s not showing off! If I--I don’t know, knitted an entire blanket by nodding at the needles--that would be showing off. This is just a skill, acquired after over ten years of constant use. Use for you, as a matter of fact.”

“Whatever. Anyways, like I was saying, you need to leave it when it comes to Remus, you know. He’s still having a rough go at it, especially since Andromeda started keeping Teddy while he teaches at the school.”

“But I’m doing this for him, and Teddy, too, for that matter,” Hermione insisted, taking the seat in front of his desk.  “Werewolves still don’t have sufficient rights, even after all the changes in the law after the war. If I just knew more about him, understood the changes a little better--“

“He doesn’t even change, not even into a dog, thanks to Snape’s changes to the Wolfsbane potion,” Harry reminded her. “He’s just like everyone else, the way he is every other day of the month.”

“What if we ever ran out of the proper ingredients, or if the Potion was lost… What then? Back to the beginning is where it would be, with fear returning to our world, a fear of something that they barely understand, and only understand the worst of thanks to that horrible specimen that killed Lavender. Remus needs an advocate,” she said, coming to the point of exasperation as she blew the stray strands of hair from her face that had loosened themselves during her speech.

“And you’re just the person to be that advocate, aren’t you?” Harry asked, his voice deceptively soft.

“This isn’t about Ron,” she insisted.

“Isn’t it? He was bitten while we were clearing the school after the Battle and disappeared afterwards. I miss him as much as you do, but you can’t bring him back by saving every misunderstood creature you can--“

“Remus isn’t misunderstood, Harry. I think I understand him quite well,” Hermione said. She sniffed softly and turned away when she felt her eyes fill with tears. “He and I both lost lovers during the war, didn’t we? Even if Ron and I weren’t married, we would have done so, I like to think.”

“I thought so, too,” Harry said. When she turned back to him, Hermione saw that his eyes had grown very soft, the tears welling in the corners making them appear to be even greener than they were.

“I’m--I have to go. Hogwarts has the best library I know of, and I…“ She trailed off, shaking her head. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Can you come over for dinner next week? We’ll go to the place around the block that makes those buckwheat noodles you like.”

“Sure,” Hermione said.  She tried not to make her exit seem like a flight. When she shut his office door, her eyes blurring with tears when they passed over his official title.

Senior Auror for the Beast Division of the Ministry of Magic.

She ran to the closest Floo and disappeared in a cloud of emerald smoke.

“I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Hermione’s lips quirked into a smile just at the sound of his voice. She turned without a bit a hesitation and was greeted by a sight as familiar to her as her own reflection. Hair that was more grey now than it was blond, framing a scarred face that held the hints of both laughter and tears from the lines around his eyes. He hadn’t shaved today--or perhaps it was the lateness of the hour--and a light beard scruffed up his cheeks and jaw. The knitted cardigan that Molly had made for him last Christmas hung loosely on his body, making her wonder if he was eating properly.

You aren’t his mother, Hermione. Or his girlfriend. Just a concerned friend who wants to make sure he always has work and a place to live, custody of his child. That’s all.

“What’s wrong?” Remus asked, putting his hands in his pockets as he rounded the long library table between them. He smiled, and when he did, Hermione realized that just the simple act took ten years from his appearance, if not more. He didn’t look her age, to be sure, but he didn’t look old enough to be have a child Harry’s age--which he could have had, if things had been different for him. “Cat got your tongue?”

“No. Sorry, Remus. Just woolgathering, I suppose.”

“What are you doing here? Your school days ended a few years ago, if I remember correctly,” he said, tapping his forehead. “Of course, in my old age, I could be mistaken.”

“Tosh. I was just looking for… well…“ She blushed when she showed him the books levitating next to her.

“Lycanthropy and the Modern Werewolf and The History of Wizards, Volume Twenty Four: Werewolves and Their Place in Society?”

“Hogwarts is the only library that carries them,” Hermione said dumbly, blushing harder when he looked through the rest of the books in her stack.

“Well, the professors at the school, when I was in attendance, wanted to understand my condition a bit better. Sex and the Single Witch?” he asked, clearing his throat to cover a quick burst of embarrassed laughter. “I didn’t think Irma would allow something like this in the school.”

“That’s mine,” Hermione admitted, Vanishing it with a nod of her head. It would return to the suite of rooms Minerva kept for visitors, where she should have left it before coming to the library. She blushed to the roots of her thick hair, frustrated that she couldn’t have just picked up her spot later, before bed and dreams took over her thoughts.

“Oh? Well, there went my hopes that she was finally loosening up,” he laughed. “There aren’t too many single witches since the marriage and baby boom after the War. I’d set my store on her.”

“Isn’t she in her nineties?” Hermione asked, holding in a laugh of her own.

“Well, you know what they say about older woman and younger men, eh? She and I might be able to make the earth move with our suppressed lust.”

Hermione laughed then, really laughed, even though the joke hadn’t been that funny. Perhaps it was the stress from work, coupled with the anniversary of the end of the War coming up and her visit with Harry yesterday, but she’d been so tightly wound up that the laughter within her soon became uncontrollable. In fact, she laughed so hard that she howled, just once. When she did, she felt a large hand grab her upper arm, roughly enough to make her open her eyes.

All of the laughter was gone from Remus’s face; his eyebrows were drawn tightly together, his eyes searching hers.

“Sorry! It’s a bad habit I picked up from the boys when we were out in the woods,” she giggled, now nervously as the hand tightened more.

“A bad habit,” he repeated, looking at her lips now instead of her eyes.

“Lupin!”

Hermione jumped at the sound of Snape’s voice behind her. She backed away from Remus, nearly bumping into the bookshelf behind her.

“Severus, what a nice surprise,” Remus said smoothly. His voice held none of the tension she’d seen in his face earlier. In fact, if she hadn’t witnessed the event, she’d not believed it possible now from the calm, contained man in front of her--the man she’d always known, save for those few very difficult months for him during the War.

“It shouldn’t be, by now,” Snape said, coming out of the shadows of the rapidly darkening library. He held a goblet in his hand, thin smoke rising from it. It was the potion, the concoction that would keep Lupin as a man--his normal, gentle self--and not the animal she knew he could become.

“Thank you, Severus,” Remus said, taking the goblet from him and drinking it in one swallow. A shudder ran through him as he gulped. It really was a shame that no amount of effort could make it taste any better.

“You should return to your room, Miss Granger, before the newer ghosts in this castle come out to play,” Snape said, genuine concern mixing with the harsh vitriol in his voice.

“Quite right. I’ll see you both tomorrow, then,” she said. Hermione waved her library pass over the restricted books, lifting the Alarm Charm from them and took her leave, nodding at both of the Professors before she left. As she walked out of the door, she could just hear Snape hiss, “Still after the young ones? You pathetic - “

Hermione bit her lip, wanting to argue with the dark man, but when the chill of a nearing spirit rushed through her, she left.

She’d learned long ago that not every battle was hers to fight.

After finishing her nightcap, Hermione sat the still-steaming cup on her bedside table and picked up her calendar. She thumbed through it, noting all of the things that she had missed this month thanks to a busy schedule at work.

Her monthly birth control potion, for one thing. That would have to be rectified immediately if…

Well, it wasn’t like that was going to happen anytime in the near future. She sighed restlessly as she tossed her calendar to the side and grabbed her dirty book, saddened by the fact that she could easily skip a month or even the last five years, of the Potion and not have any worries.

Things should have been very different. She should be in a warm bed with Ron snuggled at her side, not back in this cool castle, still striving to be the top of all of her achievements.

“It isn’t fair, is it? Life isn’t fair though, Granger. Best to toughen up while you still can,” she muttered, repeating the lines verbatim that her father often said whenever she went to visit while in a funk.

Shivering, she huddled underneath the quilts with her reading, just as she did in school when she didn’t want to bother her room-mates. Her free hand wandered into her knickers, the slim fingers skimming over the smooth skin of her mound. It felt good to be touched, even if she was the only one doing the touching.

With a small sigh, she closed her eyes, ignoring the book and its stimulating words, and instead let her thoughts wander to the memory of Ron’s hands as they roamed over her body late at night, when the sounds of the forest around them had been the music of their too brief romance. In her fantasy, she turned to meet his gaze, but was surprised when she found that his eyes were no longer the cool, steady blue that still made her long for him.

No, they were different. Green, like the color of moss, flecked with gold. Not Harry’s eyes, for the hair that hung lankly in front of them was not black, but a light brown--blond really--shot through with the brightest silver.

Hermione’s eyes snapped open so quickly that she thought she heard the sound of her eyelashes cut through the air.

That was unexpected.

But it wasn’t unpleasant, she noted, feeling the space between her thighs tingle harder than it had since…

Her experience with Ron had been so gentle and so utterly sweet that she couldn’t really call what happened between them passionate. It had mostly been about mutual oral pleasure, which had been so very, very enjoyable for them both. The one night that they had consummated their affection, Ron had pushed about two inches in and come so violently that she’d had bruises on her hips the next day from his eager hands.

Her palms reminded her of his smooth cheeks against her thighs, and with little effort she came quietly, though she wasn’t sure just who she was imagining when the hands in her fantasy ran over a smooth, tousled mop of hair that was not ginger in color, but was a fine, silvery-gold mane.

He was calling to her, even in her dreams. His voice echoed through the corridors, drawing her to him. Even though her body felt heavy like a solid piece of lead, she could hear him begging for her to come to him. His voice pierced through the thick night air, hitting her straight through to her core, making her wet, making her want, making her--

Hermione woke with a start, not quite remembering the dreams that had plagued her throughout the night. It was still pitch black outside, and the candle next to her bed had burned out long ago. The only light in the room now was just the very silvery light of the full moon. She resisted its pull, turned away from it completely as she ran her hands over her hair. Judging by the mess she felt, she knew she had been restless. She could feel the knots as she ran her hands over her the thick, mussed locks. Sighing, she called for her brush only with her mind, feeling it slap into her hand. She wrestled with her hair, working out the knots as she tried to remember exactly what had kept her sleep so light, and her dreams so vague. It wasn’t until she sat her brush on the bedside table that she heard the howl echoing in the night.

Rising from her bed, Hermione didn’t bother with her wrap as she walked to the door to the suite of rooms. The howl came again, so close that she swore it was just on the other side of the door. Unafraid, she opened it, starting when she saw that Remus was on the other side.

He was sweating, profusely so. His hair stood on end like Crookshanks’ did the night after a full moon, as though the electricity in the air crackled through his body. White teeth glinted in the moonlight that filled the outer corridor, and Hermione noted just how sharp they appeared to be with his lips curled back. He wasn’t smiling, not the way she knew him to smile when he was happy. No, this was like …

Like an animal.

She awoke completely then, coming to full awareness that it was the full moon, and that even with the new Wolfsbane Potion, Remus was not himself tonight. She tried to shut the door in his face, but the action was in vain. The door crashed open, throwing Hermione back against the sofa in the sitting room where she had tea earlier in the day.

When he turned his gaze to Hermione, she couldn’t stop the low moan in her throat. His eyes were so dark, as dark as what she imagined Salazar Slytherin’s eyes to be. Except that they were set in Remus’s kind face. That face was no more--it was lined with harsh, thick slashes that made her wonder if this really was Remus. Perhaps it was the ghost of Fenrir Greyback, tormenting her for his murder so many years ago.

She could smell him, this man who was so familiar to her. Remus always had the scent of the ocean around him, as though he had just come back from a day of walking by the shore. This was the same man she’d known half her life, except that she was seeing the animal in him. She hadn’t seen this side of Remus in a long time.

Hermione tried to run escape into the bedroom, but he grabbed her as quickly as she moved and dragged her to him, slamming her body against the tense muscles of his chest. Distantly, she could feel something heavy against her belly, but she couldn’t process everything that was happening to her, as much as she tried. She could only focus on the man in front of her, on the urgency in his eyes, and the heat that radiated from his body as he pushed her against the wall.

Without a single word, he ran his nose along her neck. His breath was hot as he snuffed in a breath, just as Crooks would when investigating a new treat.

“Remus, what are you -“ she whispered, only to be cut off by his heavy palm covering her mouth.

His nose trailed down her neck to the crease between her breasts. With his free hand, he yanked the fabric, tearing it with a quick jerk of the wrist. The cool night air teased her breasts, and despite her fear, she could feel her nipples harden. His lips just touched the hardened points, a quick tease before moving lower, his hand ripping the linen of her nightdress again until the front was ripped in half.

Gooseflesh rippled across her skin as her friend, her once favorite professor, sniffed her skin straight down to her pussy, lingering there as his breaths came out in heavy pants. Each one tickled her skin, enhancing the arousal in her already heated flesh.

Her dreams of him from the previous night came back to her then, and when he whined, the high pitched sound triggered the depths of her memory. The voice in her dreams had sounded just like this, deep and familiar, even though she hadn’t made the connection until his mouth had trailed back up into her ear and he whimpered like a puppy as he licked the shell of the tender flesh, making her shudder in unexpected delight.

“Remus,” she groaned against his palm, overtaken by her response to the simple sensation of his breath on her skin. Eagerly, she leaned into him, panting herself as he repeated the action, running his nose from her ear all the way down to her cunt. She pressed her thighs together, trapping him when he buried his nose in her nether hair. The light scratch of his beard against her belly and the tops of her thighs made her bite her lip, trying to suppress the desire of wanting his face buried between them.
He didn’t respond. Remus just grunted in reaction to his name, the sound very much like … Like a dog.

Or a wolf.

She didn’t fight him when he stood and hauled her up, nudging her into the bedroom, nor when he tore the nightgown completely from her body in one last, clean rip. She was nude, her golden skin glowing in the moonlight as he removed his clothes. Remus didn’t speak, not even once when he pushed her onto the bed, turning her so that she was face down and powerless against him.
Still, even though she could have fought him off with a single nod of her head or with a little more focus in her mind, Hermione couldn’t seem to do anything other than respond greedily to his touch. His hands, larger than she had ever noticed, slipped between her folds, and not gently at all his fingers thrust into her as though testing to see if she was wet and ready.

And Merlin help her, she was.

Even though her mind knew better than to submit to his assault, it was exactly what she did, what she wanted. Moaning, she spread her legs wider when he slipped two more fingers into her tight passage, letting him know that she wanted to take whatever he wanted to offer. With no grace and even less finesse, she felt the blunt head of his cock slip between the lips of her pussy, then he was inside her.

The pain she felt was so intense that she bit down into her lip, her teeth breaking into the tender flesh until she tasted the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. He was so big, and she so very small. Hermione’s body ached as it stretched to make room for him to settle into her further.

Remus went completely still, the only sound in the room now his deep intake of breath mingled with the pounding thud of her heart. His nose dropped to her hair, then her neck, small sniffs tickling her skin until she turned to look at him, searching for his eyes. The sensation of his mouth on hers and his rough tongue took her breath away, and Hermione closed her eyes again, her mind spinning when she realized that he was tasting her--not only her mouth, but the blood on her lips.

He started to thrust, still licking her lips as his hips slapped against her buttocks, wildly humping her.

Oh, gods above he was taking her like an animal. Like a dog. And Merlin…

“Merlin!” she screamed against his mouth, her hips meeting his as she caught his frantic rhythm. Remus’s right hand left her hip, sliding to her belly, pressing low until she could swear that he was trying to feel himself move within her.

It hurt so good, the hurt was so very good, making her mind spin as pleasure coursed sharply through her body in spirals that started to--

“Uuuhhh,” he grunted, breaking into her thoughts.

“Remus,” she moaned, hoping he wouldn’t stop.

He grunted again, his mouth leaving hers to press against her ear. He nipped the flesh of her lobe sharply, licking the warmth away when his teeth pierced her flesh.

“Remus?”

“Howl for me,” he whispered, just before he sucked her ear into his mouth.

The climax roared through her, and even though she hadn’t thought about the moment long ago when she’d howled to distract him, that night when she and Harry had helped Sirius escape the Dementor’s Kiss, she remembered just how good it felt to freely howl into the night air, at the moon that was as big and full as his cock. She howled, in pleasure and in pain, and heard his own low call join hers as he swelled inside her to the point that she thought she might rip in half.

Heat filled her, spilling out and onto her thighs. Neither of them could move, for he was so full inside of her that they would have to remain as they were until he finally softened enough to slip from her. She knew that dogs mated this way, but she never dreamed that a werewolf would too. She stroked herself, tightening her cunt around him until she came again, her howl softer now as she continued to stroke the nub between her thighs.

“Merlin,” she whimpered, shuddering again as his warm body collapsed on top of hers.

===

When she woke, Hermione was tucked into her bed. The morning sun was just rising in the small window to her left, and she could hear the low murmuring of spring pixies outside of it. For a moment, she wondered if last night hadn’t been a wonderful dream. Then she moved. The delicious ache between her thighs was not caused by her fingers, and when she licked her dry lips, she could feel the new scabs that covered the wounds.

“Hermione.”

She rolled over and saw that she wasn’t alone. Remus was there, his hair mussed from sleep and all their other activities from the previous night. Blushing, she remembered what had happened after their first coupling. How he had withdrawn from her, flipped her over in the bed, and licked her until she was howling again. She could still feel the burn from his stubbly cheeks inside her legs. There was a small smear of blood on his upper lip--her blood, though if from her lips, ear, or from elsewhere, she didn’t know. Reaching out, she brushed her thumb over the spot, wiping it as best she could. Remus flinched away from her at first, but when she set her stern gaze on his he merely nodded and let her rub the spot until she was satisfied that he was clean.

“Do you … Do you have any recollection about--“

“Of course I do,” he said grabbing her wrist and bringing her hand to his cheek, sighing when her soft palm caressed his skin.

“And I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said quickly. “I’m not, not in the least.”

“But you… Merlin, Hermione… I--“

“Stop,” she demanded, using a tone that Harry and Ron used to call her Professor’s Voice. “There’s nothing to regret.”

“Even if you become like me in a month’s time?”

Hermione frowned and looked away, trying to control her emotions before turning back to meet his eyes. “Remus, what makes you think I’m not like you?”

“What?” he said, sitting up in the bed suddenly and looking down at her.

Biting her lip again, taking care not to further injure the sore skin, she sat up. She took the blanket with her before she took a deep breath and lowered it, showing him the deep claw marks on her belly.

“It happened the summer between second and third year. I never told the boys, other than telling Ron I was attacked by a dog when I was a child. My parents and Professor Dumbledore worked out an agreement, much like the one that your parents made with him when you were in school. Except that I didn’t go to a shack when I turned. Professor Snape used that time to perfect the changes to the Wolfsbane Potion that he published after the War. I was his test patient, even though it wasn’t really a test, I suppose,” she snorted, looking at the still pink scars that marred her skin. “It’s why I really had the Time Turner. No one ever knew I was gone. Not even for a night. Severus had the potion perfected by my sixth year and taught me how to make it--even though he never taught me to make it taste better, the bastard.”

“Yesterday, in the library, when you laughed,” he started, swallowing thickly before continuing, “I wanted to take you against the desk. I’d heard your call before the night that Peter Pettigrew returned and responded to it, but I couldn’t find you in the woods.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything else I could do to distract you and keep you from hurting anyone.”

Remus pulled her into his arms, breathing in deeply. She knew the second he smelled something important, the secret she’d held within her since the first time they’d come together the night before. His skin puckered with gooseflesh, and for a moment he stopped breathing altogether as he slid a large hand down her chest, splaying it over her abdomen .

“You’re pregnant,” he gasped. “With--“

“With a human child. Our child,” she finished, smiling nervously. “A baby, just like Teddy was. Our kind are made, not born. You know that.”

“But what if--“

“The Potion will keep us safe,” she said, burrowing her head into his chest. “As long as we need it to.”

“I didn’t plan for this to happen, Hermione,” he said, stroking her stomach softly. She felt his body relax and was glad. Even more so when the hand started to slid further down to settle possessively between her thighs.

“I didn’t either, but… I can’t regret it.”

“No time for regrets. I fought with that enough after Nympha… Nymphadora’s death.” Remus’s voice caught over his late wife’s name, but he continued on, just as he had done since the day he was released from Madam Pomfrey’s care.

Hermione nodded, running her hands over the length of his arm. The time for questions and for longer conversations about the future would come. But for now…

For now she relaxed for the first time since she woke up to the news that she was a werewolf at the age of thirteen. Safe in the arms of a man who was her kind, who was perhaps her mate …

She sighed and howled softly, for the simple fact that with this man, she was free to be exactly who she was.