Author's Notes:
Besides one disastrous attempt at NaNoWriMo (what even is plot?) I haven't written creative prose in well over a decade, and although I've read millions of words of Harry Potter fic I've never attempted to write any... until now.

This idea has been lurking in my mind for months now. I kept wishing someone else would write this little scene so I could read it, but I finally decided to do it myself (and somehow managed to stretch it to more than 2k words, what even).

Please note that while this takes place when Hermione is underage, the attraction is one-sided and Remus feels nothing but an innocent affection toward her in this one-shot. You can't convince me that Hermione didn't have at least a *tiny* crush on Remus Lupin at one point.

I hope you enjoy, and please be kind to my little heart.

"Are you ready?" Remus Lupin asked politely, his elbow held out toward her. Hermione stared at it for a moment before she realized she was meant to take it.

"Oh! Yes, let's go." She spoke hurriedly, but when she reached for him she was surprisingly hesitant. Have I ever touched him before? She wondered, a bit baffled by whatever made her suddenly shy toward the kind man whom she considered a mentor and friend. Her hand gently curled around his lower bicep. The fabric of his robes was worn thin from age and too many washes, and she had a wild thought of how little separated their skin from touching.

He had been her teacher for only one year and that was two years ago, so her memory may be hazy, but even with everything they'd gone through she didn't think she had ever stood this close to him. There were the lectures and practical lessons from Defense Against the Dark Arts in third year, and that awful night in the shrieking shack when Peter Pettigrew had been exposed and then subsequently allowed to escape amidst the confusion of Lupin's unexpected transformation. He had tried to kill her that night— well, not him, of course, it was the werewolf and Lupin himself had no choice in the matter; he had snapped and howled in her direction, hunger and no measure of recognition in his wolfish eyes. But in all of that they had never actually touched, had they?

"Hermione?" Professor Lupin's voice broke through her distracted thoughts in what seemed like a second attempt to get her attention.

"I'm sorry?" She fought a blush and failed.

"I said that you might want to hold on tighter; I'd rather you didn't splinch on your first trip via apparition." He said, as patient as always.

"Right, of course." Hermione's voice sounded too high— why in the world did she sound like that?— as she tightened her grip on him. She tried very hard not to think about the muscles in his arm, or the fact that their shoulders were touching, or the fact that he was very much taller than her, or the fact that he smelled quite nice.

"Are you ready? Apparition can be a bit off-putting if you aren't used to it." Hermione felt warmed by how genuinely concerned he sounded.

"Oh, yes, I've read all about it. I picked up The Ministry of Magic's Lessons in Apparition last year, and I reviewed it when I heard that you would be coming to get me and that we couldn't travel by floo. It's supposed to be very uncomfortable — apparition, that is, not traveling with you — and side-along can be even more disorienting as I won't be picturing the destination as you will be—"

Hermione snapped her mouth shut as she became aware that she was rambling, horrifically so, all while standing so very close to and clutching the arm of her former professor. He was watching her, politely attentive, his lips quirked up in an affectionate smile. He was used to this, Hermione realized, as she had tended to discourse frequently at Hogwarts while answering questions in his class. This wasn't so different than when he would ask about hinkypunks or red caps and she would have more to say than the textbook did. Although she had never done that while practically hanging on his arm.

"You are as well prepared as always," he said at her pause, "though— that reminds me," and using the arm that she wasn't currently holding, he pulled out a small, folded bit of parchment from inside his robes and handed it to her. She opened it with her free hand and read '12 Grimmauld Place' in elegant, unfamiliar handwriting. She looked up at him with a question on her lips but he answered before she could ask it, "That is the address to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix," he nodded toward the parchment. "It's under a Fidelius charm, so you can't see it unless the secret keeper shares its location with you, which he has now done."

He reached out his hand again and she placed the parchment back into it. Lupin closed his fist around the note and opened it again to reveal an empty palm, the parchment vanished in what was an impressive display of wandless, nonverbal magic.

Hermione was a sucker for impressive magic.

Lupin brought the hand that seconds ago had vanished the headquarter's address and placed it carefully but firmly on top of Hermione's hand on his arm. At the hand-to-hand contact, Hermione sucked in a breath in a way that she hoped was not terribly noticeable. "And now, we apparate." Lupin told her, and he turned on the spot.

Uncomfortable, her book had called it, but Hermione thought that was understating it. It wasn't painful, but it was a squeezing, nearly intolerable pressure along her body that made her panic. She held tightly to Lupin's arm, bringing herself closer to his side as she fought the urge to scream. Luckily the whole process only lasted a moment, because that scream was at the back of her throat and her mouth open in preparation for it. Instead, a high pitched squeak came out, followed by a gasp as she gulped in the air that had been forcefully squeezed from her lungs. Her feet were back on solid ground until she took a half step backwards and then they weren't.

"Oh!" She let out a startled sound as she lost her balance. She had been standing on some front steps, she realized, and when her feet shifted backwards there was nowhere for them to go but down. She blinked and readied herself for hitting pavement when instead she felt an arm come around her waist and a hand grip her shoulder; her own hands came up to brace against a steady chest. Wide eyed, she looked up to find herself face to face with Remus Lupin, the lengths of their bodies inches apart. For not ever having touched the man before, this was awfully more intimate than she had ever imagined a side-along apparition with him could end up. He was firm and steady above and around her, and being in his arms, no matter how innocently, set her heart at a sprint in her chest.

He pulled her more stably upon the step and withdrew his arm from behind her lower back. The touch had been so brief that she was already wondering if she had imagined that part. His hand was still on her shoulder, steadying her, and she gratefully leaned into it when she noticed that she was rather dizzy. She was vaguely wondering whether this symptom was a side effect of the side-along apparition or if it was caused by the sudden closeness to her former professor when she heard him ask, "Are you all right?"

Hermione nodded, unable to tear her eyes away from his and finding her mouth struggled to form words just then.

"Do you need a moment?" He asked her, intent and kind, and her heart was a quarry, beating with another great burst of speed. He was handsome, she thought — if a bit tired looking — with warm, concerned eyes. This close, she could see all of the faded scars criss crossing his face; they gave a sort of rugged mystery to his appearance that Hermione found extremely appealing. His sandy hair, streaked with gray, was slightly disheveled from the apparition and the ensuing effort it took to save her from falling on her arse. She resisted an insane urge to push a fallen strand back off of his forehead.

"Yes... yes, I think I do." Her voice came out breathy and she hoped he attributed it to her inexperience with their form of travel and not their current physical proximity.

"Sit," he told her, and she listened, perhaps a little too forcefully, as her knees gave out instead of bending and her backside hit the top step, hard. The contrast Lupin made as he gracefully moved to sit beside her was embarrassing. "Not the most pleasant feeling, right?" She shook her head. "The first time can be quite the shock, but it gets easier as you get used to it. Here, eat this." He said, holding out a small, wrapped something that Hermione knew had to be chocolate. Her slightly shaking fingers brushed his as she took the foil wrapped candy, and her skin tingled where they had touched.

"Well, this is familiar." She said through a weak smile, unwrapping the sweet. "It feels like the first time we met, minus a dementor." She added, in case he needed a reminder that she had been in the train compartment the day the dementor caused Harry to pass out, when Lupin had come to their rescue with a patronus and restorative treats.

"Ah. The train, the year I taught." He sounded wistful, and she looked up to see that his smile matched his voice.

"Do you miss it, Professor?" Hermione asked, hoping to distract him from her pathetic apparition reaction... or maybe she was reacting to him in general, she still wasn't clear. "Teaching, that is..." Her brain told her to stop talking and her mouth continued to form words, "you were the best Defense teacher we've ever had, by far, and one of the best overall too, and I'm not the only one who thinks so..."

They met eyes again now, and she got a little lost in his. Underlined by faint purple shadows of exhaustion, the green of his hazel eyes stood out in contrast. They reminded her of the golden-green light of a deep forest, and the depth they revealed aged him even more than the silver in his hair.

"That's very kind, thank you. I do miss it." He looked like he might say more about the subject but held back. He shook his head and smiled, adding, "And I'm not your professor anymore, Hermione. You can call me Remus now."

Trying to hold herself together while her blood turned to lava in her veins was quite the feat.

She managed a smile, she thought, but it was hard to tell how natural it looked with the way her face was burning. She looked away and folded up the bit of silver foil into a neat square. She thought she felt fine enough to stand and said, "Shall we go in now?"

"Are you feeling recovered?" He asked and she nodded. "Excellent. Molly Weasley has been working in the kitchen all afternoon and it smells delicious." He stood very smoothly and offered her a hand to pull her up. She took it, excessively aware of how much bigger his hand was than hers, and how his skin was dry and warm and his grasp very sure. Her finger brushed over a slightly raised scar on the back of his hand. She quickly let go.

As he turned to go inside, she summoned her courage, cleared her throat and said "Remus?" His name felt strange on her tongue: something foreign and forbidden but lovely and sweet. He looked back at her with his hand already on the door knob and she thought he looked amused by how quickly she took him up on the offer to call him by his first name. Hermione tried not to feel uncomfortable and pressed on, "Thank you. For the chocolate, and for retrieving me, and for casting the protective wards on my home. It makes me feel better about leaving my parents."

Remus's face softened then, the lightheartedness turning into something more compassionate. "You're very welcome, Hermione." She knew she had never heard his voice quite like that before, so soft and understanding, and it was directed so sincerely at her. It made the reality of her life feel suddenly very tangible and inescapable— a brewing war where her life was in danger, the fact that she was already more involved in said war than any teenager should be, and the risk that it all placed on her family. She could feel the heat that was previously in her cheeks collect along her lash line, threatening to condense into tears that she most definitely did not want to shed in front of Remus Lupin. Merlin, she had already rambled and nearly fallen and fainted in front of the man, and this was in a span of five minutes! The last thing she needed was to dissolve into tears. She quite valiantly fought them back as he swung open the door.

"After you." He said through a grin, sweeping his arm to welcome her inside. "Watch your step and mind the horrific portrait." Wondering what he meant, she walked curiously into the house that would be her home for the rest of the summer, along with that of the Weasley family, and hopefully Harry soon, and Sirius Black, and... Remus. Her summer home with the Order, and with Remus.

If she accidentally brushed her shoulder against his chest while crossing the threshold, well, that is something she would firmly deny.