The Winner Takes It All - Chapter 2- Hermione/Remus

Title: The Winner Takes It All - Chapter Two
Pairings: Same as the first chapter
Characters In This Chapter: Hermione, Remus
Warnings: None
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no money!
Yay to my beta who is awesome!

“The Gods may throw the dice, their minds as cold as ice and someone way down here loses someone dear.” – ABBA

 

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“He’s gone,” she whispered, her throat tightening painfully.

Remus sat beside her on the bench she must have conjured up; the last time he sought solace in this very place, it hadn’t been there. Ron was indeed gone, virtually chased from the Burrow by a frying pan-wielding Molly. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. Not even the twins had laughed, and they were always trying to get a rise out of Molly.

“I went by the flat today,” she murmured, looking down at her clasped hands. “He’d already taken his things.” He heard her sniff. “I thought maybe…maybe he’d change his mind.” Her voice cracking with emotion, she continued. “But he didn’t.”

Reaching over, Remus placed a hand over hers, covering them both and giving a gentle, sympathetic squeeze. “It’s ironic, really,” she went on. “When I found out what he’d done, I was just so angry, and all I could think about was how on Earth did I end up such an insensitive clod.”

Picking at a cuticle above her fingernail, she continued. “I mean, he’s not exactly my perfect match, you know?” Remus did know, but remained silent. She just needed someone to listen. He’d learned a long time ago that women who shared crises with male friends weren’t necessarily looking for them to fix the problem; for the most part, they just wanted to be heard. “We fought, sure, but all couples do. I couldn’t stand the way he shoved food in his mouth as if it were his last meal. Even when we went out to eat, which was rare, he’d do it and I’d be horribly embarrassed to be seen in public with him and his atrocious table manners. And he couldn’t stand the fact that I kept the flat neat as pin and griped at him whenever he left his socks on the floor; he called me anal. Where he learned that word is a mystery.” She snorted derisively. “Unless he read about it in one of those fascinating articles, of ‘Whoo-Whoo Witches’ magazines he kept hidden under the sink.” She wasn’t even going to mention how hurt and inadequate she’d felt when she found them on a cleaning frenzy.

She turned her tear-stained face toward Remus and the pain he saw there tore at his insides. “He had his faults, did he ever, but he was mine, Remus…mine! I would never…never have dreamed of really leaving him.” She paused for a moment, contemplating what she’d said. “That sounds selfish, doesn’t it? It’s not as if you can own a person.”

She searched frantically through her pockets for the tissues she’d shoved in there before leaving Grimmauld Place, and then stopped when she remembered she’d used them all up on the walk here.

Remus pulled out a clean handkerchief, offering it to her. She took it from him with a grateful, watery smile. His mouth twitched a bit at the very unladylike sound her nose made as she blew into the linen. He was glad he’d had the forethought in bringing an extra along just in case she’d need more than one.

“Thanks for letting me stay these last few days. I just couldn’t face going back there, not after…. Well, you know.” Hermione anxiously twisted the hankie in her hands. “You and Sirius have been wonderful. Everyone else has been great too but it can be a bit much, all that caring and well-meaning hovering business.”

“Would you like me to leave? Let you be alone for a while?” Remus asked, not wanting to intrude. It was true that her friends had been heavily hovering over Hermione, leaving her little opportunity to be alone with her thoughts. Hermione was used to having plenty of alone time, a luxury sorely lacking within the last seventy-two hours or so. Remus, being similarly natured, understood the need for periodic bouts of isolation. It was a necessity when one used the brain as strenuously as they were both wont to do.

When Voldemort had been at his zenith, they had, with a single-minded determination, endured long and arduous hours of putting their heads together to research anything and everything they could get their hands on. They went from books and journals to parchments to rumors and wild speculations that sounded utterly ridiculous but, more often than not, were helpful in their own way. No stone had been left unturned in the quest to defeat Voldemort. It had been a daunting endeavor to be sure, but the team had prevailed with no small thanks to them.

“No!” Hermione exclaimed, grabbing his arm with something akin to panic in her eyes. “No,” she reiterated more calmly, seemingly embarrassed by her outburst. “Can you just sit with me for awhile?”

She looked so broken and lost, Remus felt a swift pang of anger at Ron for reducing such a fine young woman to such a state. “Of course.” His answer was simple but it had a miraculous effect on Hermione.

She slumped against Remus’ side, relaxing completely, resting her head on his shoulder. She hadn’t been sleeping well, which was a wonder considering that the crying jags she’d indulged in should have depleted her energy to the point of total exhaustion. But images of Ron flashed across her lids whenever she shut her eyes. Images of how he’d stood before her, his face ashen and twisted with a mixture of shame and fear as he struggled to spit out that he didn’t love her and wasn’t sure if he ever had. She might, might have been able to deal better if he’d said he didn’t love her anymore, but to say that he had never loved her had been devastating.

Hermione had thought it odd that he hadn’t immediately followed her when she’d Apparated from the Burrow. In the past he would have done so immediately, intent on placating her. But never in her wildest dreams would she have considered the reason he hadn’t was that he’d been working up the courage to dump her!

As if on cue, the moment Ron left, Ginny showed up to offer sympathy and support, and that had been when it had struck Hermione that everyone who had been at Grimmauld Place that afternoon had known what Ron had been going to do. In some ways, silly as it seemed, that fact was even more hurtful. Hurtful and humiliating.

Remus put an arm around her and she burrowed closer to the warmth of her friend.

“You smell good,” Hermione said suddenly.

Remus’ chest reverberated with laughter, a rumbling that felt nice beneath her ear. Rubbing her arm from shoulder to elbow, he admitted in a conspirator-like tone, “Eau de Chocolat.”

“Double Dutch chocolate chip brownies?” she asked, a hopeful smile lighting up her face. “They’re my favorite.”

“You don’t say,” he said in exaggerated mock surprise.

“Oh, you.” She slapped his arm playfully. “Did Sirius help?” she asked suspiciously.

He grinned widely. “Would it make a difference?”

Frowning a bit, she said in a huff, “He always puts too many chocolate chips in with the batter.”

“Is there such a thing as too much chocolate?” he wondered out loud, genuinely believing that no such thing existed. His insatiable sweet tooth was common knowledge.

“He chucks in handful after handful and that many chips are too heavy for the batter and so they sink to the bottom,” she whined. “Because of that the brownies don’t cook all the way through and there’s nothing at the base but an inch of chocolate sludge.” She shuddered, her distaste all too clear. “It’s yucky and annoying!”

“Well, now, I don’t know if I agree, and as a wise person once said, there’s no such thing as angst—we’ll substitute that word for ‘annoying’—without chocolate; chocolate being the remedy that cures all ailments.”

Hermione scrunched up her brow. “I don’t remember reading that quote anywhere.” She was pretty sure she would have come across it at one time or another as she was a widely read young woman. “Who said it?”

Remus tilted his head back, staring into the sky as if it held the answer to her query and inhaled sharply. “I think it was Betty Crocker or Dear Abby or some such person like that.”

Hermione let out a torrent of giggles, a sound which gladdened Remus’ heart. “You’re being nonsensical, Remus Lupin! How in the world do you know who either of those people are?”

Remus hugged her closer, laughing at her baffled expression. It wasn’t an expression you saw on her face often and Remus found it delightful.

“Lily was addicted to that Betty Crocker cooking show and she’d come back from holidays bearing new recipes which she forced, and I do mean forced us to partake of.” He shook his head, bemused. “For someone with a straight ‘O’ in Potions, she still never quite managed to successfully throw together a few ingredients to create a dish that none of us weren’t afraid to eat.”

Sputtering in amusement, she corrected, “I think you mean, Julia Child.”

At his questioning regard, she continued to enlighten him. “Julia Child was the name of the woman with the cooking show; not Betty Crocker. Now that you mention it,” she mused, tilting her head to the side, “I don’t even know if Betty Crocker was ever a real person. Could just have been a name they came up with to slap on all those cookbooks.”

Rubbing a hand across his jaw; he asked, “And Dear Abby?”

“She’s what’s been commonly referred to as an Agony Aunt.”

“A what?”

Hermione laughed again, feeling good while with Remus for the first time since the whole fiasco with Ron had begun. Remus was a magician of the highest order when it came to discerning what made her tick and how to handle her with grace and compassion.

“You know…one of those people who hand out advice, usually to the lovelorn.” The incongruity of the situation struck Hermione like a slap to the face. Suddenly, she wasn’t so happy anymore.

Sensing her change of mood, Remus pressed her face into the crook of his neck, offering silent comfort. A few minutes passed before he asked quietly, “Can you hear it?”

“Hear what?” she asked, her voice muffled by his robes.

“Them calling,” he whispered.

Hermione reluctantly pulled herself away from Remus, her brown eyes flickering side to side, searching for potential intruders. Had someone discovered their sanctuary? She tried to cover up her disappointment at the very thought of this wonderful and healing area being desecrated by the presence of others.

“Hermione,” he admonished gently, torn between continuing to tease her and putting her out of her apparent misery. He chose the latter. “I put up a non-traceable protective ward on this particular plot of land. Trust me; no one’s going to stumble across this place. I was referring to the brownies shouting out for us to come and devour them. You’ll be relieved to know that Sirius was too busy with his latest conquest to deign to assist me in the kitchen.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He’s certainly living up to his reputation he earned way back in his school days as the ladies man. Don’t you find it annoying when he brings home a different witch just about every night of the week?”

Remus chuckled. “I don’t begrudge Sirius a bit of female companionship.”

“A bit!” Hermione said incredulously. “I’d say it was a sight more than a bit.”

Setting her away from him, he turned on the bench to face her fully. He sighed before answering her in a voice devoid of all teasing. “Don’t judge him too harshly, Hermione. No one knows the torments he has suffered, and it’s more than likely that no one ever will. He lost…everything.”

Hermione placed her hand on his sleeve, wishing fervently that she could erase the pain and self-loathing she saw in the depths of his beautiful yellow-gold eyes.

“It’s not your fault, Remus.”

Shaking her hand roughly from his arm, he shocked her by growling impatiently, “I should have believed in him! I should have trusted in him and in our friendship, but I didn’t, Hermione, I didn’t! All those years of thinking he betrayed us, when in fact it was me who betrayed him.”

Hermione didn’t know what to say. She’d never seen Remus this agitated; he’d always been the composed, laid-back one, quietly taking care of everyone and all the little details from behind the scenes; the mature and calming influence of their group. But here and now, in this moment, Remus oozed bitterness and contempt.

“Is that why you come here?” she questioned gently. “To wallow in self-pity?”

The question was asked so nonchalantly that it took a second for her true meaning to sink in and when it did, it defused Remus’ anger as abruptly as it had appeared.

“You know, Hermione, one of the many things that I admire about you is that you tell it like it is. You make me take a good, long, hard look at myself and my motivations. Do you know how rare that is?”

Lowering her eyes, Hermione bit her lip. “More often than not, it gets me into trouble. Most people are offended by my know-it-all attitude; it tends to drive them away. Don’t be jealous, it’s not a useful trait,” she joked, but Remus could tell that it truly bothered her.

Lifting her chin with his finger, Remus rushed to reassure her. “Your intentions are never malicious, Hermione. No matter how they might come across to others. It’s who you are and the people who care for you understand and accept that part of you. They’re even grateful for your no-nonsensedness.”

Her lips curved upward before she announced, in her best know-it-all voice: “Professor Lupin, I do not believe that such a word exists.”

“That’s my girl,” he said, gripping her chin and giving it an affectionate shake.

His kindness and acceptance was her undoing. “Why can’t Ron see that?” she asked, her voice filled with soft agony. “Why doesn’t he get it? Why can’t I share all of this,” Hermione demanded, spreading her arm out to encompass the beautiful surroundings, “with him? I could never bring Ron to a place as this.” Her tone was wistful as she looked around. “He’d be bored out of his mind within the first five minutes. Unless, of course, there’s a dining room table filled to capacity with all of his favorite dishes. No trouble sitting still then, let me tell you.”

Turning away, Remus bent over and clasped his hands together, letting them fall between his parted thighs. “Dora wouldn’t appreciate it either,” Remus admitted. “She’s an amazing woman in all manner of ways, and I’m lucky that she’s even looked twice at me. I’m not exactly the catch of the century, but she was able to see pass my affliction and for that she has my never-ending gratitude. But this, right here, is beyond her capacity to understand. She’s so vibrant and alive and I’m…I’m a broken version of who I once was. And because of that I often need to be on my own, to have my own space, and that hurts her tremendously. It pains her that I can’t let her in enough to just be with me.”

Hermione rested her hand on Remus’ back, drawing small circles between his shoulder blades. “It doesn’t seem to have made a difference in how she feels. Tonks loves you, very much. I’ve witnessed it first hand; it’s in her every smile and every touch.” Hermione laughed softly. “We’re all as good as invisible whenever you walk into a room; she sees no one but you. I’ve noticed, too, how she watches your every move, her eyes following you as if you’re the most precious of gifts that she’s ever been blessed to receive.”

Hermione had wished that once, just once, Ron would have looked at her with such wonder and delight. Now she finally knew why he hadn’t: He’d never truly loved her. Their entire relationship had been a sham, a sorry excuse of a facsimile for the real thing.

“Hermione, please don’t idealize my relationship with Dora,” Remus requested gravely. “It’s a horrible thing to put someone up on a pedestal. You, Ron and Harry have had to wrestle with that sort of nonsense since the end of the war. And if I recall correctly, you found it to be quite abhorrent and made no bones about voicing that opinion, and while the circumstances here are different, the sentiment remains the same.”

“But you’re perfect together,” she insisted.

“There’s no such thing, Hermione!” Remus responded, exasperated. Sitting upright, he raked his fingers through his overly long hair and said with a forced grin, “I think a brownie sounds good right about now, don’t you?”

Hermione blinked at his obvious attempt to change the subject. After a brief hesitation, she agreed with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That sounds fantastic.” She jumped up and grabbed his hand, pulling him along behind her. “Maybe we can get there before Sirius eats them all.”

“Maybe.” This time his grin was genuine. “But I wouldn’t place any bets on it.”

Snaking her arm through his, she stated firmly, “Then, you’ll just have to make more!”