Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter 16: Show me where my skin begins

Remus had tumbled around in dizzying dreams for much of the day and night after Hermione had left the cabin, finally confident in the fact that he would hurt himself no further and could be left alone. He hadn't fallen into any of their shared nightmares, but instead found himself spinning in a blur of faces and locales, some he hadn't seen in person for decades, now. Lily. James. Sirius. Harry. Godric's Hollow. Grimmauld Place. Running through the fields of Hogwarts with a band of merry animals at his side. Peter. Albus. Passing a cigarette between himself, Lily, and Sirius behind the Herbology greenhouse on a chilly November evening, laughing. Hermione.

Yes, she was there, too, but not in the tangible way of their recent common dreamscape. These were at first just replays of memories, new and older, like a film. He saw Hermione's steady hand on his bare chest, creamy softness in stark contrast to a bone-white pale beneath and hair streaked with too much gray for his meager thirty-eight years. Hermione stroked his skin gently as she tried to close his wounds...

...She stood on a grassy overlook, half-moon beams glowing through her white nightgown, illuminating the shadowed silhouette of long, slender legs and lending her an ethereal radiance that called to mind a ghost of possibility...

...The feeling of her lips against his in front of a telltale mirror, of wanting to plunge deeper into her, in any and every way possible; of wanting to disappear into her being and be enveloped by her and consumed by her and wanting to consume her, wanting to feel her inside of him, or was it him inside of her? He couldn't say; none of it mattered, none of it mattered as much as the elusive touch of her tongue against his and her vital warmth against his own...

Febrile imaginings came, too, along with the memories, though none of them were as affecting as those that involved the younger witch. In this plane of unconsciousness he could experience these fantasies in full color, without the harsh, whispered admonishments he'd receive from his own mind in the conscious world. Here, Hermione lifted away his shirt as she had before, yes, but not in healing. Or, at least, not only. He felt his bare skin against hers, saw what he imagined would be there if he ever allowed himself to look. He felt the soft frenzy of her hair as he plunged his fingers deep into it, wanting to disappear, wanting to vanish in it. He moved with her, and she with him, and nothing had ever been so good or so right, and none of it was laced in bitterness and guilt. God, the allowance of it was such a relief.

Remus awoke, sick and sweaty and painfully hard, sometime the next morning. He couldn't tell when, exactly; only that it had been a knock at his cabin door that had eventually shaken him from his final, impure dreams. Swallowing dryly and hearing a loud clicking in his ears along with the thrum of his still-pounding heartbeat, he tried to settle himself as best he could. "Door's open," he called out, weakly, hoping that the visitor would hear and he would not have to rise from the bed on shaky legs and with the guilty remnant of his licentiousness implicating him in his lust to any innocent viewer.

Unfortunately, it was the object of those rampant desires that entered the cabin at his beckoning. Hermione walked inside, carrying a satchel and wearing a light golden scarf over his own burgundy cardigan. Her cheeks and nose were prettily pink, and he could see the faintest puffs of foggy condensation emerging from her mouth, a hint that the mornings had already begun to turn toward the autumn chill. His heart ached.

"Well, I told you I'd be bringing some healing potions, and I did," she said, closing the door and already bustling around the cabin's main room, pulling off her scarf and beginning to dig through her satchel. "They won't immediately fix what's been done, but they should help with the pain, and hopefully help you get some strength back a little sooner rather than later."

"Hermione..." he began, trying to turn her away, feeling sick guilt creep into his stomach as his arousal refused to abate at the sight of the lovely witch. It reminded him of those humiliating moments in stuffy classrooms back in his teenage years, when all of the blood in his body seemed to drop to beneath his waist and he would have to remain flush-cheeked at his desk until the awkward sensation subsided. Hermione had the tendency of making him feel like an idiot kid again.

She darted a look at him and pursed her lips. "No."

"What d'you mean, no?" he retorted, exhausted.

"I'm staying here and you're taking these potions and that's all, Remus," she said, practically rolling her eyes as she began pulling small colored bottles from her bag.

"But-"

"No," she responded again, more impatiently. "You want me to leave? Come and push me out yourself." Hermione looked back up at him, raising an expectant eyebrow. He clenched his jaw, and she in turn smirked in triumph; he couldn't exactly tell her that it wasn't only physical weakness that was preventing him from getting up from the bed and doing so at this moment, but instead other, more shameful reasons.

Hermione walked over with her collection of bottles and sat on the side of his bed, uncorking each in turn and motioning for him to consume the contents in full. Some tasted absolutely foul; some like herbs and flowers. Warmth began to spread slowly through his veins, and soon, there was a slight respite from the overwhelming pain of his still-agonizing wounds.

As she leaned forward to adjust the pillows behind his head, Remus noticed her loose shirtsleeve ruck up to her elbow and saw something he wasn't sure he had ever observed there before: an ugly, reddish purple scar carved into her forearm. It was large, taking up most of the skin from her wrist to the crook of her elbow, and was comprised of what looked to be eight letters:

M U D B L O O D.

Before he could stop himself, he breathed in sharply and reached out for her arm, pulling it closer so he could discern whether he really was seeing what he thought he was. Startled, Hermione held back for a moment, then, lowering her eyes, allowed him to turn her forearm to face him more clearly. The scars had clearly been cursed onto her skin, and were even more brutal than those he had slashed into his own flesh countless times over the years.

"Oh, god, Hermione, what is this?" he said, raising his eyes to look into hers.

She didn't quite meet his own. "Bellatrix...at Malfoy manor. I usually try to cover it with my clothes or some charmed makeup that Ginny got me. I want to find a way to erase it, but I'm not yet sure if it's possible. I don't like to look at it." She reached with her other hand to pull her sleeve back down, but he stopped her with a steadying touch.

"Does it hurt?" he enquired, softly.

"Sometimes, I suppose. It's not like Harry's...was. But it sometimes stings, like if it's under hot water."

Remus gently, oh so gently, touched a fingertip to slowly trace each letter, feeling the heat of her skin beneath the gesture as if the mottled tissue was still pulsing with the curse magic. His fingers came to rest on her wrist as he looked down at the awful slur, and after a moment he could feel her quickened heartbeat drumming under them. So strange, he thought with wonder, to feel such beautiful life persist beneath something so dark. It crossed his mind, not for the first time, that this girl sitting before him was something like a miracle in the flesh.

Before he could stop himself - perhaps still feverish from the lingering effects of his transformation and the healing potions she had so recently forced him to consume - he raised her arm to his face and, holding her hand in his left and her elbow in his right palm, bent his lips to her wrist, tenderly kissing the magic of her resilient heartbeat with all the kindness he could conjure from the depths of his being. She had done so much to try and save this world; he feared that no one would ever understand the pain she still suffered because of her bravery and sacrifices. But here she was, alive, breathing, even caring after him in his own hour of vulnerability. Though he knew he should push her away - though everything inside his mind screamed at him to do so - his heart simply couldn't do it. Not now. Not again.

Remus heard her gasp quietly as his lips caressed her warm, pale skin; Hermione's eyes went half-lidded as she watched him consider her flesh with more tenderness than she'd possibly ever physically received. She reached up the hand he still clasped in his to touch his scarred and bearded cheek, and it was all he could do to not nuzzle into her palm like a wounded dog. She was so soft; Merlin, she was so soft, and kind, and beautiful, and a reminder that there was still hope left after two decades of hell. The sunlight streaming in through the front window fractured through the loose strands of her hair, turning the brown curls spilling over her shoulder into bright autumn gold. He wanted to hold her forever. He needed to let her go.