Will He Offer Me His Hunger?

Summer, Grimmauld Place. Kreacher was dead, his job taken by Dobby; Sirius was dead, and the building belonged to the not so ancient, but much nobler House of Potter. Dobby had declined his own room, but accepted with sickening awe the great luxury of a room with only one other occupant. He shared it with Buckbeak.

The second bed in Hermione's room was reserved for Ginny, but she and Ron were at the Burrow. Ron didn't admit it, but he was not pleased that Hermione and Harry were alone together; he was afraid something might develop between them.

If he had known!

It was early in the summer when the trouble started, and Hermione wasn't even in the room. Professor Lupin--the house's only full-time resident, as Harry technically still lived on Privet Drive--had what might be called a discussion with Snape about Sirius' death. It was the sort of discussion Fred and George would have loved to hear, and they wouldn't even have needed Extendable Ears. Quite odd from two men not normally known for shouting--but then the stakes and the passions were unusually high.

There was no mystery, then, as to why the full moon was marked not only by the absence of Lupin's calm presence in the house, but by piteous howls from behind the newly reinforced, locked door of Lupin's room. When next she saw him, Hermione was startled at her old professor's appearance.

"This is how it always used to be, I'm afraid."

"Can't anything be done?"

"Not unless someone else can make Wolfsbane Potion, and there's only one top-flight potions expert in the Order."

"Can nothing else keep you safe? What about what Sirius and Harry's father did?"

"That took them years."

"Professor McGonagall?"

"No. Her cat isn't tough enough to face my wolf."

"But the rat--"

"Was with Sirius and James."

"That rules out Crookshanks and Hedwig then, and Buckbeak might be too strong."

"Relax, Miss Granger. I'll deal with it. I have for most of my life--except those few brief years at Hogwarts."

People sometimes forgot that Hermione Granger was a Gryffindor. With all the time she spent in the library, she could have passed for a Ravenclaw. Lupin, however, should not have made that mistake. He was the same way.

And Hermione Granger had just gotten a new mission.

*

"This isn't right, Harry. Lupin shouldn't have to go through this alone."

"I know."

"I'm going to do something about it."

"Can you find the recipe for the potion?"

"It needs ingredients I can't get."

"Then there's noth--" Harry cut himself off sharply as he looked into Hermione's eyes. He had never loved her so much as in that moment. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Harry."

What Harry felt could not be put into words. He hugged her, squeezed her till she strained for air. He wasn't sure whether he had found his sister or the woman he loved, but he was surer than ever before that this was a person to be proud of, either way. "Be careful," he said, and added only the obvious: "If you need my help, just tell me." And yet when he went to sleep that night, he dug his fingernails into his pillow. This was another loss, though he wasn't quite sure in just what way.

They did not speak of it again until after the next full moon.

*

The cabinet had once held a boggart, and Hermione still felt afraid. She could scarcely breathe the hot, wet air inside it. She shivered as she heard, or rather felt, the wolf scratching on wood. It knew what the professor had not: There was live human flesh in that box.

There was time. Hermione thought.

Out there was a man, a professor, who had a sharp mind and put it to good use. A man who knew how to love--and even knew how to love himself, despite a disease that made him an outcast among outcasts. A man who knew how to fight, and more importantly, knew why.

In the cabinet was a girl, a woman, whom half the school thought belonged in Ravenclaw. The Hat had thought so too, at first, Hermione recalled. But it had looked deeper and seen where she, like Remus Lupin, belonged. Hermione wanted to fight the good fight, alongside the men who were fighting it. She studied because she knew she was smart; she loved it because she knew it made her stronger.

Heroes and heroines don't need a lot of friends--she'd always thought that, and now she'd seen proof with the hero who was her best friend. He needed two. She had thought she needed only one. But there outside the cabinet was another hero, a hero who appreciated both books and action as she did, who had suffered as much as Harry had and for less reason, alone, trapped in a disease that ravaged his wise and gentle mind and isolated him even when he was himself.

Hermione ran her right hand down the steel that covered her from her left hand to her shoulder. She felt carefully around the opening over her bicep and made sure she could not find an artery. Then she acted. A sliver of light entered the cabinet, glancing off the steel. The door was open by just a few inches and for less than a minute. It was enough.

*

The transformation back into a man always left Lupin shaking, but this time he was terrified. What had he done? There was blood on the cabinet and while the man could never remember the experiences of the wild wolf very clearly, he was certain he had bitten a human who was not himself.

"Professor Lupin?"

The heel of his hand struck the floor. It couldn't be.

It was.