A/N: This random little plot bunny commandeered my brain and staged a coup d'etat of my writing functions. It refused to loosen its hold until I wrote it, so here it is.

Thanks to Amy, who spent hours on this with me and helped me make it less of a scattered mess!

READ AND REVIEW PLEASE!

Between the Tears and Laughter

Three months.

It had been three months since he had walked into the brilliant Muggleborn's sanctuary - the Grimmauld Place library - in the silent hours of the early morning in search of something to abate his insomnia. He had found his former pupil curled up in the chair in front of the fire, sipping wine and reading Shakespeare. That had been the beginning of the end for him. Seeing her there, pajama-clad and naturally glowing in the firelight, had stirred his long-barricaded heart and the fact that she was reading Shakespeare at 2 o'clock in the morning only endeared her to him more.

Hermione Granger - she was an anomaly among her peers. At 22, she preferred the company of older adults, books, and a nice cup of tea to the boisterous parties of her friends. Even though the war was over and she had every right to celebrate the outcome, she still preferred to stay within the comfortable stone walls of Grimmauld Place, exiting only to work or go on the occasional mandatory social visit.

It had swiftly become routine, their midnight rendezvous. At first Remus thought it was a one-time thing; that she had spent that particular evening in the library because Ginny and Harry had forgotten their silencing charms again, or a nightmare had woken her and she feared sleep. He soon found, however, that she frequently cloistered herself within the walls of the room, settled comfortably in Sirius's old leather chair by the fireplace, reading and indulging in wine or chocolate.

When it became clear that she showed no reluctance to his presence after he kept 'coincidentally' finding himself in her leather-bound cocoon, he stopped his pretense of accidental meetings and just made it a habit. More often than not she would be there before him, legs tucked under her petite body, and she would flash him that dazzling, slightly-toothy smile that he hadn't seen her wear in many years. He was certain the last time he had seen it definitively was her fifth year.

Before Sirius's death.

After the necessary nights of comfortable silence had passed between them, conversation started to flow in steady streams, leaving open tomes abandoned as they discussed the different literature they enjoyed. That was until the night she asked him about his days at Hogwarts. He had shared his precious Marauder memories with her, relaying nostalgically the pranks and trouble he and his friends had gotten into. She listened, of course, absently stroking the soft leather of the chair, her eyes glazing over slightly with every mention of Sirius's name.

He had attributed her silent melancholy to just a general affection that most of them had felt for the raven-haired wizard. She had always been a compassionate, empathetic woman and he had thought her pain was just an extension of Harry's; that she hurt more for her best friend and the family that he had lost than for any personal attachment. He had thought nothing of it, until the day he realized that there was more to it than he had initially imagined.

He had walked into the library one night two and a half months earlier without any warning to the emotional confession that would lay in front of him. He had found her sobbing gently, clinging to the faded old leather of the chair, a diary on her lap.

She had gasped at his presence, the flush on her cheeks and half a bottle of wine on the floor the only indication to the overindulgence she had partaken in. He had gone over to comfort her. In her haste to wipe her tears, the diary had fallen to the floor and a photograph fluttered out. She had looked at him fearfully, eyes slightly unfocused, as he knelt before her, picking up the picture and examining it.

His best friend's burning gray eyes had stared back at him from the fading black-and-white photo, smoldering with a mixture of love and desire. Considering his attire - nothing, save for an appropriately-placed sheet - Remus knew immediately what his friend had been looking at, and why the curly-haired witch that sat in front of him had been looking so reverently at the picture he held in his hands.

"I took that the night before we left for Hogwarts after Christmas," she had said quietly in response to his questioning gaze. "He had one of me. I don't know where it went." She had let out a shaky breath as she had taken the picture back from him, tracing her finger along the line of Sirius's biceps. "He told me that night that the hardest thing he would have to do would be seeing me leave." She had choked back a sob. "At the time I thought that would be the hardest thing I would have to do, too."

"You and Sirius...were lovers?" he had asked softly, a sudden awareness of his uncomfortably-constricting chest crashing over him. "When you were fifteen?"

"It wasn't sordid," she had said. "I mean, I know it sounds bad. He was thirty-six and I wasn't technically legal but...well, at the time it did make a certain amount of sense, I suppose. When it started, he needed to feel loved and appreciated and I...well...I guess we both needed to feel loved and appreciated. I fell in love with him very quickly, but that should come as no great shock to you, I'm sure. He is...was...so easy to love."

"Yes," Remus said, and his mind drifted back to the days when he, too, had been fraternally-seduced by the beautiful man. "Yes, he was very easy to love."

"He wrote me," she continued, and she had barely noticed Remus's presence from that point as she stared at the photo. "He wrote me every week. I do believe he loved me too...in his way. I come in here because this chair reminds me of him."

She had looked up at him then, her eyes swimming with memories and tears.

"He would brood here for hours with several glasses of firewhiskey, remember? And it wasn't until I would come in and talk to him, or convince him to read with me, that he would come out of his mood. It's been almost seven years, Remus, and I still cry every time I see that picture. I don't know if I will ever be able to look at it without crying."

Remus had wrapped his arms around her then, allowing her to weep quietly against his broad shoulders. They had spent hours like that, him stroking her wild curls and her crying softly until there were no more tears. She had pulled away then, eyes puffy and red, and had given him a watery smile. She had kissed him gently on the lips - something she had never done before - and had thanked him for being there for her before going up to bed.

It had been that moment when Remus realized he had fallen in love with her.

She had clung to him from that point on, seeking his company at night even when the demands of her job had rendered her practically exhausted. Her smile, always dazzling, had softened and he often wondered why he was the only one who ever seemed to see that particular smile. They would sit, talking or reading quietly, and if she fell asleep he would carry her to her room, all the while agonizing over the thought that she was dreaming about Sirius and not him.

It didn't escape his notice, however, that she hadn't cried in the library after that night.

It had been three months now. Three months and now he was sitting alone in the library, reading and re-reading the same passage of the book he had had little interest in reading in the first place. It was nearing midnight and she had yet to appear. He wondered if exhaustion had kept her away, but he wasn't even sure she had come home yet.

He tried not to think that she was out with another man.

Thinking of Hermione with other men had Remus going back to that last year of Sirius's life. He had been so worried for his friend's life and so caught up with his own personal problems that he hadn't seen the spark of hope that had drifted into Sirius's life in the form of the young witch. It had seemed so long ago - almost seven years - but the benefit of hindsight allowed Remus the small snippets of memory. He recollected the joy in Sirius's eyes when Molly had told them Hermione had canceled her skiing trip with her family to come back to Grimmauld Place for Christmas; the light of love that had glittered when she walked through the door. It had been as plain as day, now that he thought about it.

But at the time, Remus had missed it. He had missed it all.

Just as the old grandfather clock in the corner chimed the witching hour, the door opened. He looked up and saw her. His breath caught in his throat, though he found that was nothing new these days. Tonight, however, she looked particularly lovely. Her hair fell over her shoulders in wild ringlets while the satin of her classy yet undeniably sexy cocktail dress clung to her curves. She gave him that disarming smile, and sat next to him on the couch.

It was the first time she had not gone to sit in Sirius's old leather chair.

As always, they fell into their easy conversation, Remus's book left forgotten on the coffee table. Her absence and attire had been due to Ginny's hen party. Remus had forgotten the date and was glad she hadn't dressed like that for someone special. He listened as she told him about the party, chuckling at her description of Ginny's face when a g-string man had popped out of the cake Tonks had wheeled out. Hermione had left soon after, unwilling to participate in many of the less appropriate actions the evening required.

She relayed the information with amusement, but also with the wisdom of a woman who was past such childish antics.

As she spoke, Remus gazed over her, taking her in. There was something different about her tonight. He could tell by the soft lilt in her voice and the beautiful music of her laugh. There was a softness to her eyes and he could not remember a time when she had looked at him quite that way. And in the air there lingered a hunger - he wasn't sure for what, but it was there. She had brought it into the room with her.

"Remus," she said softly, bringing his attention back to her as her eyes locked on his in a way that had his body tingling.

"Yes?" he breathed.

"Are we destined to dance around this mutual attraction until you open your eyes and realize the person I'm waiting for is you?"

He blinked and in those milliseconds, she was closer, her body pressed to his side, her breath hot on his neck.

"I don't know when it happened, Remus John Lupin, but somewhere between the tears and the laughter, I fell desperately in love with you."

Later that night as he lay in bed watching the moonlight dance across her ivory skin as she slept, her small body curled so perfectly into his, he thought about his best friend and the happiness this girl had brought to him in his time of need. Remus smiled slightly as he remembered the look in Sirius's eyes in the photo Hermione kept locked away, the passion and gratitude so apparent on his slightly-weathered face.

Quietly opening his side drawer, Remus glanced at the sleeping girl before pulling out a diary. It was nondescript - black leather with gold scrawl - but it was sacred for the memories it contained. They weren't his memories, but their significance was not lost on him. Flipping it open to a page he knew by muscle memory, he plucked a well-worn photograph from its depths, also black-and-white. He traced the wild, curly hair, the small, slightly-upturned nose, and the full pink lips of the witch in the picture.

He had spent almost a week ransacking Sirius's old room after Hermione had told him about the picture's existence. He had almost given up, assuming Sirius had had the photo on him, when he found his friend's journal. There, tucked in the folds of paper, was the picture of Hermione.

Turning it over, he smiled slightly as he re-read for the millionth time the Shakespearean sonnet that was transcribed hastily on the back in Sirius's aristocratic hand.

It was the bard's most famous sonnet – cliché to everyone but eerily appropriate for the two lost lovers during that time of great instability:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Turning the photograph back over, Remus gazed into the sparkling hazel eyes that he had just spent the past few hours gazing into as he slowly made love to her. They blazed a fire in the photo but the passion did not belie the softness that sat so close to the surface. Tilting his head, he recognized the gaze immediately. It was the softness, mixed with the hunger, that she had carried with her when she entered the library that night. He had seen it in her eyes as they spoke; not recognizing it for what it was at the time.

Glancing back at his lover, he smiled slightly, slipping the photo away before drawing her supple body closer to his. Maybe someday he would show her the picture he had found, but not now. He knew his friend had loved this witch, but the witch loved him now. So for now, he would enjoy that which he had wanted for so long and relish the trust she had placed in him to handle her heart with care. And as he fell into a peaceful sleep, arms coiled around her body, he realized somewhere between the tears and the laughter, they had both found exactly what they were looking for.