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Tainted Memories

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12 Years Ago, Outside St. Mungo's Hospital

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"Remus, don't go!"

Hermione stood in her hospital gown trying to stop him from leaving, she needed the marauder to take her to Azkaban.

The birth had not been easy and she'd been in and out of consciousness for the past week, heavy on painkillers, wondering where Sirius was. Until finally she had seen the truth in the Daily Prophet. It had been an absolute shock to see Sirius Black on the cover being called a mass murderer. She'd gone into a catatonic state and been hysterically crying and screaming madly for days. The nurses tried to calm her, not knowing her connection to the now infamous Sirius Black. The nurses assumed she must be a madwoman or lost soul perhaps that had lost too much of her family to the Death Eaters killings, just like the Longbottoms in the mental ward of the hospital or the ever mournful Marlene McKinnon who lost her entire family in one night. This young brunette girl had no visitors at the hospital except for one: Remus Lupin. Remus Lupin was the only one who came to visit her, the only person that cared for her. All their other friends had seemed to vanish into thin air.

And Remus had been witholding the truth from her when he visited and brought her flowers for the past week. He kept omitting what happened to her boyfriend or where Lily or James were or where Peter was, or why he was the only one to visit her since the birth of her child. Until finally she saw the newspapers explaining everything and she knew exactly the grim truth of what happened and how many of her friends had died that night.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hermione asked, tears rolling down her eyes. Yet no amount of tears could even begin to explain the empty hollow hole where her heart had been. Her world had been absolutely torn apart. Giving birth should have been the happiest day of her life, instead, the week since had become an asbolute nightmare. It didn't even matter anymore to her that the war was over...her own personal war had just begun.

"Why Lupin? WHY!"

"I was trying to protect you!" he shouted back at her, looking as broken as her. He had battle wounds and scratches, probably from himself, all over his face.

"Remus, I need to see him!"

They both knew who she was talking about.

The werewolf looked absolutely heartbroken but had to stop her. "What is there you don't understand, Mia? He betrayed us, he betrayed us all!"

"I can't believe that."

"He's a Death Eater. ALL his family is, what did you expect?" Remus shouted at her. Rain poured down on both of them. "He's a Black!"

Everything Remus was saying was true but somehow it didn't click. How could Sirius, her Sirius, the one that made her laugh so racuously and squirm so deeply in bed, be capable of what the newspapers were telling her?

"And you're a werewolf," she said, "But that doesn't mean I judged you or you are anything like the rest of the packs or Greyback."

"I didn't think he was either, but we were all deceived. Sirius has always had a way of getting what he wants, he deceives with his charm. You, god poor Hermione, you fell victim to this most...he deceived you! He used you, why do you think he never wanted to marry you?"

"It can't be!" she shouted. How could Remus be saying these things; he may as well have been trampling on whatever was left of her heart. Didn't he know he was destroying her? Destroying any hope she fucking had left in her to fight, to believe, that Sirius was good and he loved her.

"Peter is DEAD!" Remus said, trying to get through to her. He wrapped his arms around his shoulders. "Lily and James are dead. He didn't even care about James. We all thought he loved James."

They both began crying, their tears mixing in with the rain.

That had been truly the greatest shock of all, when she had read in the Daily Prophet a week ago that James was dead because someone, their secret keeper, had let Voldemort into their home. No two souls had seemed closer and more in sync than James Potter and Sirius Black. They had seemed like brothers. Yet wasn't it true that Sirius abandoned his own blood brother, Regulus Black? Why would James be any different to him?

Hermione collapsed down onto the ground. Falling into the puddle and not even caring if she died of pneumonia anymore, what was there to live for? She thought of Orion but then thought of how much better he might be with a stable family with two parents, instead of a broken mother who had been played and abandoned by her only love.

"Why Remus? Why would he do this to us?"

"I don't know, Hermione. I just know you need to move on. We all do."

"We all do?" she repeated. "There's no one left, it's just you and me."

"Don't go see him. He doesn't deserve to see you ever again."

"I need to know the answers."

She tried to walk away from Remus and head out in the night by herself in a hospital robe with just her wand to see Sirius at Azkaban. She know she seemed absolutely crazy. Perhaps the nurses were right: she was becoming unhinged.

Remus stopped her, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and then placing his coat over her to keep her arm. He embraced her in a hug then looked down at her tear-stained eyes. His own eyes were just as swollen and bleary.

"You can't go to see him, Hermione, please. If he finds out about the baby, who knows what he'll do. His family could be coming after the child as we speak. You have to go in hiding."

"He knows his child has been born, Remus! Why do you think he wouldn't know? He only saw me pregnant for the last nine months!"

Remus grabbed her by the face so that she was forced to look up at him. "He doesn't have to know. I can go see him for you. I will tell him the child didn't make it and his actions caused you to miscarry out of grief."

Hermione's jaw fell open, not sure what to say or do. "Do you think he'd believe that?"

"He would believe it. I will make him believe it. There are still spies in Azkaban. There are Death Eaters out there just waiting to take vengeance for Voldemort's death. You saw what happened to the Mckinnons."

Hermione shuddered and she started to feel dizzy. She truly might catch pneumonia and die if she kept torturing herself further.

"Let it go, Mia. Let him go. He used you, he betrayed us all. But you can start again, take your child and start a new life. You don't have to suffer."

Not suffer? Hermione felt like laughing madly but she didn't want to scare Remus with her unhinged grief.

Hermione closed her eyes.

There would never not be a moment, not a second, not a minute, she wouldn't be thinking of Sirius. Sirius Black, monster or not, was the love of her life. He was the father of her child. He was her first and everything.

"I can't forget him." Half of her wanted to still go to Azkaban, even if she was followed by Death Eaters on the way back and they struck her dead on Sirius's orders.

"Mia, please, don't go. Just find a new life, maybe go back to stay with your parents awhile in the muggle world."

She knew Remus was speaking sense but she didn't want to hear it.

"I can't stand seeing what he did to you. Fucking merlin, the bastard! I could kill him."

Remus suddenly grabbed her by the arms and looked like he wanted to kiss her.

She pushed him away. "What are you doing!?"

"I'm sorry, I love you. I can't stand what he's done to you, Mia. He used you."

"Maybe. Maybe I brought this upon myself." Hermione walked shakily away from Remus and back towards the hospital. She remembered how she insisted on trying to get Sirius to commit to her when he wouldn't. And then that night when she insisted on getting pregnant despite his wishes to not start a family with her. Maybe she had brought this upon herself.

"Merlin, I always knew he was wrong for you." Remus walked behind her. "I should've done something."

"I just want to be alone, Remus. You've done enough. You're the only one that has even visited us."

"You won't go to Azkaban, for you own safety?" he repeated.

"I'll try not to," she said blankly. There was nothing left in her life. She was not sure she even had the strength to go on. She would kill herself right now if not for one reason.

The only reason she had left to even breath.

The innocent, beautiful child that waited for its mothers presence back up two floors in the hospital.

"I won't. For his sake," she said.

"Good. I'll make sure no one ever finds or hurts you or your child. You'll be safe. I promise."

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Two weeks later, when she was strong enough physically to leave the hospital, she wrapped her precious child in a woolen handknit blanket, placed him over her shoulder, and left St. Mungo's with Remus's assistance. He had helped find a secure little house where she and Orion could be safe.

She sang a muggle nursery under her breath as they left the magical world behind.

She would not return or have much contact with the magic world for the next 10 years and became somewhat of a hermit, living in a muggle village by a small stream and that wasn't too far from Hogsmeade.

Only Remus visited her every weekend. Sometimes Hermione thought that Remus loved her from a silent almost reverent distance, and perhaps he thought that one day she might reciprocate his feelings, but she didn't. He wanted to be a father figure to Orion, but Hermione just couldn't accept such kindness from him except as a family friend.

There was only a black, burned out hole where her heart had been. Her heart was still Black, completely Black.

His alone.

And the greatest torture? Every day that Orion got older, the more he looked like his father, the more he reminded her of his father and the more she began to doubt that anyone remotely like her son could be evil. She began to doubt the conclusions everyone had made. Her son was not evil. Her son had a good, if mischievous, heart. How could such an evil murderer give her such a good, kind son? The impossibility unsettled her often.

And the resemblance made her worry. What if when Orion returned to the magical world, the resemblance was unmistakable? When he came of age, it would be like watching Sirius Black walk among them again. Then the questions and rumours might begin. Would they try to come after Orion? Would the last remaining Blacks or Malfoys recognize one of their own and reclaim him?

These were all thoughts that kept her up at night, especially as it came time for Orion to finally go to Hogwarts. She could deny her son many things―such as a stable two-parent home or knowing the truth about who his father was―but she could not deny her son his heritage. He was already doing wandless, involuntary magic long before he ever got his Hogwarts letter.

She needed to talk with Dumbledore. The old wizard was the only one besides Lupin who knew about her child and who his real father was.

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A/N: So what do you think? How traumatized is Hermione and broken, she has lost all her friends and magical family, including what she hoped was her husband, sirius. Do you see how she might look back on his hesitance to commit to her or have kids as now being a sign that he was insincere about her all along? How many Black family members would be alive at this time and how many do you think were/are death eaters or would want to find out about Orion?

What does Dumbledore know that she doesn't? Will Hermione finally visit Sirius after 10 years or will it all come to a head when he escapes? How is Remus going to handle being displaced again in Hermione's heart?