A/N: This was a...sort of gift fic for a friend. Remione is not really my thing, but I always get a kick out of writing somewhat awkward sex and this was somewhat awkward to write, so...there ya go! Werewolf sex folks...be warned.

Hail the conquering heroes.

The battle was done and over and it was time to celebrate.

Except not really.

A lot comes along with war, most of it they don't tell you about in the story books.

The good guys win, the bad guys are defeated, the good guys live happily ever after.

Until they don't.

Until the fact that you lived through the battle doesn't matter.

Until the fact that everything was okay between you and everyone else when you all thought you were about to die was found to be only valid when you were about to die.

Until you realize people still grow apart.

Until you realize you remember that war isn't the only thing that destroys a person.

Until you understand that the good guys live happily ever after and then you find out the truth.

They do, you don't because you were never truly one of them.

Remus Lupin sat in his dark, dank corner of the dingy Muggle bar with the itch beneath his skin and tilted a glass to his lips once more that evening. He had spent several months, years really, understanding all the real facts about war, realizing what was left, trying to deny this and this and that until, really, he was simply done. His wasn't a story of happily ever after. Last he checked, villains didn't get happily ever afters and he hadn't found one account yet that proved the Big Bad Wolf to be anything but one of the bad guys.

This is why, he'd said to himself, this is why my happily ever after isn't in the cards.

He took another swig and swished the amber liquid around in his mouth.

Masks – literally and figuratively – got difficult to keep up with at times. He knew he had to behave, knew he had to blend into the normal wizarding population and keep what he was under wraps as much as he still could after being exposed too many years ago, he knew he did.

Until he didn't anymore.

Too much effort to walk the walk and talk the talk of the good man, the nice man, the sweet, humble, tortured man when he could just not. What was the point anymore anyway? His happily ever after wasn't coming and most of the people he cared about were gone in one way or another, probably because of him. Because he's not allowed to have that happily ever after so they can't either, not if he's in it.

I'm so sorry…

He took another drink.

It's better to embrace one's nature than to hide in the shadows and behind masks of what you are.

And so he would because it just didn't matter anymore.

The shortest distance between two points was a straight path anyway and all that rot.

A familiar scent wafted across his senses and he was sure he recognized it, though he knew it just couldn't be. Remus had managed to convince himself it wasn't her at all but was ultimately proven wrong when she slid into the rounded corner booth with him.

. . .

"Blood moon tonight," Hermione spoke conversationally as though it hadn't been years since she'd seen him. "Not a particularly good time for you to be out and about getting pissed – in a Muggle pub, no less – an hour before sundown, potion or not."

He blinked at her blearily, one lid then the other in a sluggish motion.

She watched his nostrils flare and he looked at her in a way she's not certain he ever had before.

If she were to wager, Hermione would say a hefty portion of that expression was his strained control of years past being shrugged off and replaced with a hefty portion of don't give a flying fuck. She didn't have to wager though considering he looked at her again that way, scented her, and reached out to cover her wrist with one of his hands, thumb finding her pulse point and rubbing it in circles quite fondly.

"Still the brightest witch," he slurred.

Hermione turned her one hand over to touch their palms together, dragging her fingertips in patterns over his own wrist. She watched his glazed eyes twinkle a bit at her and his head drop back against the booth cushion, his mouth curling up in an overly lopsided grin at the way she scooted around the booth to his side.

"You'll kill every one of them tonight," she whispered placidly as if the words she was saying weren't terribly damning for someone, even if it was neither of them. He moved to take another drink but she placed a hand over the tumbler's opening, curling her fingers around the glass and shifting it in her grip to take a sip instead while holding his stare. If she felt the rumbling growl from his chest at her actions, she didn't mention it, nor did she make any moves to get away.

. . .

Remus could smell the alcohol on her breath with such a scant space existing between them. The tang to it, the spice, the thickness of it all…it was much more than that little sip she had, much, much more.

"The Big Bad Wolf didn't make friends with the pigs and the sheep and the-" His eyes darted to her lips, shiny and parted and really quite close, and he wet his. "-innocent little girls who wandered into his woods. M'not one of the good ones… the villains don't get the happy endings, Hermione, so m'fraid I can't be bothered to care anymore…"

That's when she laughed.

She laughed and it did things to his stomach that had maybe only a little to do with the alcohol buzzing through his veins and a lot to do with the way this brilliant, brown eyed beauty was smoothing her hands over the tie about his neck – just another costume, another mask he'd thought to wear until the end.

Her forehead pressed to his temple and he tensed.

Her breath tickled over his ear with another bitter chuckle.

"I guess I'm the Wicked Witch, then," she said. "Certainly not the innocent little girl. Not anymore."

There were more villains in the mix than anyone thought, apparently.

"Come with me," she purred.

She set aside the tumbler and took back up one of his hands to coax it beneath the table.

Remus had enough sense to shake his head and offer a halfhearted protest even as he realized the tantalizing path she was guiding him on. "Blood moon, remember? The urges will be far too intense, too…irresistible," he said and sheepishly added, "…and there is no potion."

She was surprised; she couldn't quite hide it before he'd noticed.

His hand, at her insistence, crept farther up an impossibly long, deliciously thick thigh and edged beneath the hem of her skirt. Encouraged by the nip to his ear, he flexed his fingers and the moisture there as well as the fact that she was so very obviously not wearing any knickers sobered him considerably; he groaned and was certain his eyes rolled straight to the back of his skull.

"I've a theory," she said hotly in his ear, more a wolf than he in that moment, "about controlling those…urges."

"Can't be done. Believe me, I've tried. If it could be—"

"Not by you alone, of course. And it's not as much 'controlling' as it is 'diverting'. Would you care to help me in an experiment, Professor? For old time's sake? I think you'll find it quite enjoyable."

He would have snorted a laugh at her question and his revoked title if his fingers hadn't been parting her so slightly, her hips rolling ever so faintly, and her arousal as well as the approaching moon clouding any sane thought he might be capable of having in the face of it.

. . .

Hermione found herself slammed up against the wall of the sparsely furnished and cheap hotel room. Her body was pinned between it and her mentor – no, he wasn't that - the man she'd had her eyes set on for a while now. His teeth were on her neck and her hands had been able to struggle with the loosening of his tie and the unbuttoning of his shirt only about halfway before he grew impatient with her fiddling and took her wrists to pin those above her head as well.

"How long?" he growled into her ear in a way that was borderline animalistic.

She gasped when his hands tightened around her wrists and managed to stammer, "Weeks, I've been trailing you for weeks."

"Why?"

He was angry, harsh, demanding – she felt his blunt, human teeth nearly break the skin and shamelessly bucked her hips into his with a crying whimper. "Not ready to lose you too."

He snarled into her skin and came away from the wall, dragging her with him by the hair and shoving her forward to bend her over the bed. Hermione could see herself in the chintzy mirror hung over the modest hotel dresser, could watch him as he pressed up to the backs of her legs and tugged her to him with a hand hooked into her skirt's waistband.

She could see his eyes darkening from that pleasant, albeit drunkenly glazed green to something fierce and golden and feral.

. . .

Remus flipped her skirt up and swept his hands across the perfectly pert bottom wriggling and pressing to his still clothed thighs.

"Villains don't get happy endings…" he murmured more to himself than to her but she made a noise in her throat that his lupine self understood in the most basic of ways and he was shredding what remained of her attire, and his.

She was wet, so, so wet. For him. Like this.

If she'd bothered wearing knickers that evening at all, they'd have been drenched. As it was, she was rubbing that slick wetness on his now nude self, keening and muttering drunken ramblings at his reflection.

"Professor…your eyes…"

He crawled over her body, his chest pressed to her back, and met her stare. "…the better to see you with…"

She shuddered out a moan and repositioned herself so he was nestled between her cheeks, shaft stimulating all sorts of glorious things that made him growl into her frizzy head of hair. He nuzzled his nose through her curls, taking deep draws of her scent and starting a tortuous grind of his hips to hers. He guided a hand to snake around her waist, up the taut line of her belly, arm resting between her breasts where they hung so wonderfully on display, to reach and grasp her neck in a grip that was swiftly changing into something much more beastly.

Her eyes lingered on the claws now pressing into her flesh, making pinpoint dimples in the skin beneath the cracking and morphing of his bone and muscle. "Professor, your hands…"

"The better to touch you with."

He growled the barely human words and dragged his tongue over her cheek, tasting the salt on her skin and rumbling with satisfaction at the taste and the needy noise that tumbled from her throat. His mouth clamped over her neck on the same spot it had been before, sucking on a hunk of her flesh hard and mercilessly and almost – almost – breaking its surface with newly sharpened canines.

She moaned and pressed back, head tossing to one side as best it could in his hold and she panted, thighs tensing against his. "Professor, your teeth—"

"The better to claim you with—"

He moved his hips away from her rear far enough to reposition himself at her entrance.

The tip of him nudged her, teasing her lips, parting her with it until she was trembling in his hold and he knew it had nothing to do with the way his chest cracked and barreled out against her back and his frame stretched and grew to dwarf her own.

"Professor, please—" she cried and there was a funny, ragged quality to it.

His ears twitched and changed into something wolf-like, tugging into points and shifting on his skull. His teeth and tongue and everything were too big for his skin all at once and so they tore it to shreds to make a new, tougher, hardier sort of skin and pelt to accommodate.

It was less painful, he found, when he embraced it.

The urges to kill and maim and destroy, they were still there…just not nearly as prominent as the other so very basic – and pressing – need to mate.

His muzzle was buried in her hair and her scent had a strange quality to it, not inhuman, but not quite "normal" either.

His vision blurred and refocused again and again, colors shifting spectra from one to the next, and it was when he caught her lustfully lidded stare from their reflection once more that he understood why.

Such a smart girl.

She fumbled a hand back, grasping for him, fingertips glancing across him thick and hard and as ready as she. "Professor—need you, please—" It was a raspy groan at best, more a noise mimicking the low rumbling growls that were vibrating against her back.

She always had been his best pupil.

Good students deserved to be rewarded.

"The better to ravage you with, my bitch."

It was the last human thing he spoke that evening, and even then, it was barely that.

. . .

He slammed into her from behind, filling her so perfectly and rocking her on her hands and knees on the bed.

Her hands dug into the dingy sheets beneath them, fingers curling into claws.

His hot breath blew out over her bared neck and shoulder, the press of his furred chest to her back more warm and inviting than horrifying.

Her head tossed from side to side, whimpers slipping past her lips with his faster and more frenzied thrusts.

He stroked her so wonderfully, so, so, so perfectly, as if he knew exactly what she needed and what she needed was exactly this.

She panted and whined, the noises making his ears twitch and flick and his great beastly chest rise and fall with his own rapid breathing.

She spurred him on until he had those massive claws clamped over her sides and was pistoning his hips, slamming into her over and over, and drawing more savage, carnal sounds from her that only served to drive him further toward the edge.

His rhythm stuttered suddenly and then he was buried deep, to the hilt, grinding and twitching and swelling as he emptied himself inside her.

His jaws clamped hard around her shoulder, drawing blood.

Her howl of pleasure tore free from her throat.

It was one of many to follow throughout the night.

. . .

When the sunlight found him that next morning, streaming in from behind ratty, torn curtains to paint his naked body with its warmth, Remus came to with a start. Memories of the night before would take a while to trickle back in, but right from the start, he tasted the stale tang of blood and other fluids on his tongue and was thoroughly drenched in the scent of his former student and the thick stench of sex. He swiped a hand over his face, wishing he could be shocked as it came away with smears and flakes of old blood but knowing his worst fears had come true.

What an idiot.

What a colossal, monumental, IDIOT.

Felt so sorry for myself that I—

A tumbler that contained something amber colored and was quite strong was shoved beneath his nose and he jumped back with such a fright he would have fallen off the bed if he'd not already been on the floor to start.

Muddy confusion clouded most of his thoughts but was slowly being nudged aside like clouds clearing to allow for a sunny day.

That alcohol.

Her smell.

Her eyes.

Remus looked up and had to squint to see the witch looking down, holding the one glass out to him and sipping from another that was cupped gently in her other hand.

"Morning," she said. Her voice sounded rough – likely from all the screaming...or actually growling and canine whining.

He blinked a few times at her, wanting to be shocked and appalled, but instead settled on accepting the drink, taking a swig, and leaning back against the edge of the bed where they'd apparently ended up before passing out of exhaustion.

Eying her a long moment, he eventually muttered a groggy, "How long have you been an Animagus?"

Hermione shrugged, drained her glass before setting it aside, and moved to join him once more on the floor. He tensed only slightly when she crawled over his outstretched legs and knelt with a knee on either side of him. When she placed her hand on his sparsely haired chest, chuckling to herself at the contrast from mere hours before, he actually seemed to relax.

She counted it as a victory when she moved in to nuzzle her cheek along the coarse scruff of goatee he sported and he didn't jerk away. Instead, she felt his hands gliding over the backs of her calves and thighs. With even that small of a caress, her overworked muscles clenched and her nipples tightened and she reflexively bared the glaring purple mark on her shoulder; she was certain his rumble of approval was wholly involuntary.

"Long enough to concoct a theory," she breathed cheekily.

He bared his teeth, blunt and human once more, but she still curled her nails into his chest with a needy sound and allowed herself to be tugged closer so he could run his lips over her skin. "The diversion tactic did appear to be a success…"

"I knew it would be." Hermione started a sensual roll of her hips once more, dragging strangled groans of pleasure from the werewolf beneath her, the remnants from their couplings still slick and evident between her thighs.

"Sounding like a bit of a know-it-all, Miss Granger."

"I've been called worse…"

He buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, tasting her essence still on his tongue and thinking she tasted like sunlight and innocence and everything good, wonderful, and brilliant in the world. "Villains don't get happy endings," he cautioned her again.

"We're not villains, Professor," she murmured and pulled his face up so she could see him. Hermione brushed dried flakes of her blood from the corner of his mouth with a startling lack of emotion. "We're simply no brand heroes. Washed up. Forgotten. Without a cause. Warriors without a fight…but not villains."

Remus fell into the rich, heady gaze looking down on him, twinkling in the sunlight. "What do the no brand heroes get, then? Certainly not a happily ever after." He hummed pleasantly when her little fingers started combing through his ruffled hair, lingering on the thicker patches of gray that were every day coming closer to drowning out the brown.

"Each other, Professor. S'all we've got anymore…each other."

The rough noise he made at the back of his throat made her lids flutter and she pressed her forehead to his. His hands stroked over her bare skin carefully, delicately, as if he hadn't just spent hours ravaging her as a wolf – fucking as literal beasts – drowning in each other in the most carnal ways possible. She guided herself over him where he was hard again, sliding easily down his length and sharing a strained groan.

Hermione drew her bottom lip between her teeth and knocked her head back and began to move. "But our villains are dead and buried," she said, "and when the rest of the others' glory days turn to brass and tin, we'll all be the same."

He watched her rise and fall, her walls dragging along him with deliberate clenching and tensing of her muscles.

"Washed up," he murmured fondly.

"Forgotten," she agreed.

"Without a cause."

Remus grabbed her hips on a particularly good upstroke and she hissed in delight from the pain of his fingers digging into the darkly bruised spots. He snarled, tugged her off of him to flip her around and slam her forward to her hands and knees. She moaned and pressed her cheek to the floor, ass up eagerly, and he thrust into her from behind so fiercely it drew a surprised breath from her lips.

"And then?" Remus asked gruffly, tangling a hand in her wild curls, yanking her flush against his chest and her head to the side to expose her unmarred skin.

"And then we're not alone."

Hermione reached back to tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling his mouth to her neck and grinding back against him erratically when his teeth roughly began to worry the flesh between them. Her head dropped back onto his shoulder and she moaned his name like a prayer when he snaked a hand down her stomach to play between her thighs. His fingers worked her in a heated caress, circling her swollen bundle in time with every harsh snap of his hips that made her head spin and brought her closer and closer to ecstasy with every thrust.

He was growling her name in that way that wasn't entirely human.

She was panting his in that way that entirely was.

And then they were coming together in a way where they couldn't be bothered to think any of that actually mattered.

Remus brushed her hair away from her ear, trailed his tongue along the shell and made her shiver before nipping at the lobe.

She tugged his arms around her, refusing to be moved from his lap. Hermione cheekily delighted in the sharp hisses from his lips when she would tense and clench her muscles around his sensitive and softening length.

"Come away with me," she offered as she did the night before.

"To be a no brand hero?" he hummed against her skin.

"To be mine." She shrugged and added, "And to continue ravaging me on the daily."

He snorted a warm laugh that puffed out over her skin and buried his face back into her hair. "Truly, you are the cleverest of all witches."

She shrugged again. "The liquor helps."