11

Part of me is acting while the Other stands beside

I am to myself what Jekyll must've been to Hyde

It's an explanation to my split identity - ABBA

Normally, for Hermione, apparating was an easy, albeit slightly uncomfortable way to travel. And, although uncomfortable – in her opinion – it was definitely a notch above using the floo. One of the real benefits that apparating had over flooing was that at the end of the journey you weren't a sooty mess. Fact was, even side-along apparating – a real nuisance which required far more concentration than regular apparating – was preferable to using the floo. Sure, it was a bit more difficult bringing someone else along for the ride, but it had its advantages anyway. But apparating while attached to someone else's back? With someone literally hanging onto ones coat tails? Well, let's just say that, for Hermione, it was a new and an immensely jarring sensation all together!

As she felt herself whirling to the end of her destination she decided to try to take the upper hand. Visions of all the action movies her dad had made her watch to 'round out her education' – or so he'd told he often enough – came to her rescue. At the time she'd thought he'd had just been intent on torturing her. Her mum had said it'd had nothing at all to do with torture and more to do with bonding. So, Hermione went ahead and sat on the couch every Saturday night of her vacations beside her dad munching on popcorn and doing her level best to enjoy herself.

She reached back into the corner of her photographic memory to recall certain aspects of those movies and hoped it would give her a helping hand now. Bypassing all the bits where everything known to man had gotten blown up, she centered on the endless car chases and escape sequences she'd been forced to endure. She focused on the ones where heroes and villains alike, jumped from moving vehicles. Intellectually, Hermione knew that stunt people performed all those dangerous feats while the real people stood off to the side watching from a safe distance. Unfortunately stunt doubles weren't a viable option in this case.

When she and Remus finally did land it had almost been as bad as the last time she'd used a port key. Pushing that untimely thought aside, she drew on all those movie recollections and then followed what she thought was standard movie escape procedure. She readied herself and then wholeheartedly committed to the task at hand. Then in true heroine style, and while keeping a death grip on Remus' robes, upon appearing at the end of their journey, she jumped, tucked, and rolled.

They'd dropped like a brick, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled! At least that's what it felt like to Hermione. Endlessly rolling around on the floor with Remus until they'd come to a complete stop ending up in a mass pile of tangled limbs. Long masculine legs entwined with shorter, more feminine ones. Hands and arms: scarred and rough, meshed with softer more delicate ones. Wide shoulders: hard and unyielding, pressed more pliable and receptive curves into the equally unyielding floor.

Hermione took a moment to try to catch her breath, though it was difficult with Remus crushing her and with her head spinning from their wild ride. A deep groan from above rallied her out of her winded stupor.

"Remus! Remus, are you okay?"

No articulate answer was forthcoming, just another groan and a shudder that racked Remus's entire body. Pressed this closely together Hermione had no trouble feeling it down the entire length of her own body. And, to be honest, it felt pretty damn nice. The way the hard planes of his chest crushed her breasts with their tender tips pressed flat. It was slightly painful, but only in a really, really good way.

Reaching up, Hermione tentatively touched the back of his head before whispering, "Remus?"

Again, no answer, so she was understandably dismayed when with a growl that reverberated pleasantly against her neck, he thrust a knee against her most sensitive juncture.

She yelped in shock at the intimacy of it all, a yelp which quickly turned into a husky moan when his knee began to rub against her, moving in slow deliciously decadent circles.

"Oh, my God," she gasped, gripping him at the back of his head while unconsciously bucking beneath him.

She could feel his breath, hot and heavy on her skin blowing loose tendrils of her hair until they stuck moistly to the curve of her throat. It was a disconcerting sensation as well as being an undeniably erotic one.

This is so wrong, she thought, but her brain quickly skirted by that moment of clarity when his hand grabbed at the material of her top just below her belly button, and with a swift upward pull, yanked it from the confines of her shorts.

Hermione felt a rush of embarrassing wetness between her thighs. This is crazy, and even worse: this was Remus. Remus, grounding his knee into her! Remus heating the very core of her body faster than Ron had ever been able to do. It generally took her a good thirty minutes or so of foreplay to get her even mildly prepared for the actual act of intercourse with him. Yet Remus had gotten her there in seconds by just a push or two against her pulsating feminine core and by the simple act of pulling out her shirt?

"I can smell you."

Her eyes flickered open, confused. "What?" she asked breathlessly into the strong column of his neck, experiencing a powerful urge to lick at the salty sweetness she found there.

"I can smell you," Remus muttered again, his voice harsh with desire. Now Hermione was really embarrassed! "Your want. Your need. Here," he nosed her softly from the crook of her neck down to the hollow beneath her arm, and then while pressing the heel of his hand firmly on the throbbing area between her thighs, he continued, "and here."

Hermione keened, her eyes rolling in back of her head, the pleasure was that overwhelming. She could feel him grinning at her uninhibited response, but she didn't care.

"You're so ready… so needy."

Hermione gasped her approval when he pulled at the delicate skin behind her ear with his teeth, being especially careful not to draw blood. She turned her face into a swath of his sandy-brown hair. It felt coarse against her nose, and smelt absolutely fantastic! Without thinking, she thrust her eager hands into its thickness, digging her nails into his scalp. He rewarded her gesture with a husky grunt, and then with great dexterity he popped the button of her shorts with nothing other than his thumb. With a slow, seductive precision, the tab on her shorts was lowered at, what seemed to Hermione, to be at an agonizing slow pace. The rough pads of his fingers brushed against the quivering muscles of her belly causing adrenaline to pound through her veins like an electric charge.

"I'm going to take you," he purred into her ear. "Do you want that?" He questioned, intent on taking her whether she agreed or not. "Do you?" He persisted. He wanted her to admit to this feral attraction between them.

Hermione's head was swimming, swimming in a pool of molten lava engulfing her in drenching waves of sensation. Her body virtually hummed with a virulent hunger. In the dim recesses of what was left of her cognitive mind, she recognized that some part of her should be ashamed of the depth of her wanton craving. But there was no denying the deep ache in her lower stomach, no denying the tingling burn of emptiness between her legs.

"Tell me!" He demanded with soft ferocity just before biting down lightly on the lobe of her ear.

"Yes," she whispered, barely coherent. Her hands plucked at the buttons of his shirt swiftly releasing them from their holes. He drew back in silent invitation, wanting her to touch him, to learn him, to slide her hot hands over his body, to discover all those places which he'd kept sacred for her alone. When the last button was undone, her hands began a tentative exploration.

Remus watched helplessly as Moony pawed Hermione, pawed and mauled her using Remus' very own limbs, his own lips, and his own body. In vain he struggled violently against the iron grip that Moony had on him. He couldn't, mustn't let this continue. If only he could maintain some sort of control – if not over Moony – at least over his own reactions to Hermione and the damnably smooth brush of her questing fingers. And he knew! That crazy wolf knew how Hermione's touch was affecting him! Knew, and was reveling in the knowledge that Remus, though horrified by what was happening, still wished it was him experiencing first-hand all this riotous, disturbing excitement instead of merely by proxy.

"We can take her together." Moony's insidious suggestion echoed in Remus' head, and he'd be a blasted liar if he didn't admit that the idea held a certain appeal for him.

Gritting his teeth, and pushing such thoughts aside, Remus declared angrily, "No, this is wrong! I don't want her," he added for good measure.

"Lies!" Moony hissed in derision. "Lies you tell yourself because you are weak and afraid! Your misplaced sense of loyalty has kept me from the witch I want – we both want – for long enough. I will not be denied!"

In desperation Remus tried another tactic. "What about Hermione and what she wants? Doesn't what she wants equal into all of this?"

Moony chuckled. "You question her wants? Have you fought your instinctive nature… cut yourself off so completely, that you cannot recognize what is right before you?" When Remus remained steadfastly silent to Moony's questions, he continued with a trace of amusement tingeing his voice, "What is it you humans say? 'The truth will set you free.' Prepare for the truth."

Suddenly, a great wild whoosh of excitement engulfed Remus like a bonfire, crackling and snapping, burning him in its blue flame. Remus' world spun in a multi-colored, turbulent haze. What was happening? "What… what are you doing?" He asked in breathless consternation.

Now, it was Moony who remained silent.

With a sense of incredible bewilderment, Remus found himself in control of his body once more. He barely had time to rejoice at this strange turn of events before bold, masculine arousal flamed through him with the swift, unerring accuracy of an arrow hitting a bulls-eye. Down in the area of his pelvis a hard knot of anticipation unfurled startling him with its intensity.

Had he, only a few moments prior, wished that he could experience this first-hand? Could he take that wish back? He heard a deep, guttural groan of earthy need come from somewhere outside of himself. Through a shaft of blinding hunger he felt her, felt her touching him, moving in desperation against the rigid length of his cock. He answered her silent plea by pushing her legs farther apart and settling himself squarely atop her crotch.

"Yes," she hissed, and began writhing and arching into the front seam of his trousers.

He was losing his mind, he had to be. This was not Hermione Granger, his friend, begging him with every sinuous movement of her delectable body to take her. It couldn't be!

"Oh, but it is," Moony refuted him. "You are not the only one who has denied the truth of the matter. Our witch had fought against us… against this, for years. You deny us out of a sense of contempt and unworthiness of self," Moony sneered in disgust. "She denies through a sense of supposed love for a witless boy!" Shaking his head sadly, Moony declared angrily, "You are – the both of you – pathetic in your self-induced ignorance."

Remus shuddered convulsively when the smooth glide of Hermione's hand grazed, and then stopped to cover one of his nipples, circling it until the flat surface raised up into a tight bud beneath her palm. His breath escaped in a low hiss and before he knew what he was doing he grabbed the gaping neck of her top and with one vicious twist if his wrist, wrenched it wide open down the front. In an impatiently, contemptuous manner Remus cast aside the remnants.

With an unquenchable thirst, his eyes drank in her beauty; she was like an oasis to a man who had for years been wandering aimlessly lost in a dry, arid desert. How had he, never before, noticed the rich, riotous cascade of her butterscotch curls? Or the enticing honey-soft swell of her mouth-wateringly ripe breasts.

"You are seeing her for the first time ever with our eyes! Not just with your own simplistically human ones." Moony clarified with smug satisfaction.

Remus was to the point that he didn't give a damn whose eyes he was looking out through. With avid intent they fastened on the full pink pout of her mouth, zeroing in the tiny tip of her tongue. He wanted to tug that tongue into the depths of his own mouth and pull and suck to give her a preview of how he planned to pull and suck her other swollen pink tip made tantalizingly fragrant from her arousal.

Hermione's insistent attempts to divest him of his robes and shirt were hindered when he bent forward intending to plunder the luscious fullness of her lips. She didn't take this set back very well. To his surprise, she pushed him back with uncommon strength and whispered thickly, "Take them off." This was a Hermione that Remus had never experienced. Where was the kind, gentle, cerebral young woman he was used to?

"Now," she pressed earnestly.

Needing no second order, Remus shrugged out of the offending garments. Hermione sighed her approval upon seeing his naked torso. The mixture of awe and tenderness in which she traced each of his elevated scars drove him nearly to the edge of reason. He almost laughed aloud. As if reason had anything whatsoever to do with any of this. If he had any sense at all he'd stop now before it was too late.

Moony, sensing Remus' ambivalence, came forward to take over should the need arise. Up until now he'd been content with the way things were going. With a bit of a nudge on his part and a dose of good old-fashioned lust, his human counter-part and been doing magnificently. But Moony could feel the doubts that were assailing him now and he couldn't afford to let him screw this up for the both of them, not when they were so close.

As it was, Moony's intervention wasn't needed after all. Hermione curved one hand possessively around Remus' neck and pulled him toward her, claiming his lips with a hot, consuming urgency hitherto unknown to him. Remus greedily ravaged her willing mouth, roughly dominating her.

Moony threw back his head and howled in voracious victory before melding seamlessly with Remus. Now that Moony had joined the fray, Remus' kiss became more rigorous, more commanding. With savage impatience his deft hand scooped one of her creamy breasts from the prison of her bra, chafing the nipple with his thumb.

A shimmering heat wracked Hermione to the core, she didn't know it was possible to physically hurt with longing; but she did! Something of her pain must have conveyed itself to Remus because he stilled and then whispered hoarsely against her mouth, "Am I hurting you?"

"No," she whispered back, peppering his lips were short, sweet open mouthed kisses. She captured his full lower lip between her teeth and bit down, then soothed the mark with a flick of her tongue.

All of his fine body hairs raised in instinctive awareness while his breath snarled in his throat. He was being pulled under by the pure sensual force rampaging in every atom of his being. With no further hesitation on his part he buried is greedy, masculine mouth in the mounds of her breasts turning his face until he trapped a rosy crest and pulled it into the deep cavern of his mouth and began to pinch it vigorously between his tightly clenched lips.

A tortured cry of pleasure broke free from Hermione and both Remus and Moony exalted in every husky moan, every tortured quiver that they elicited from their wonderfully responsive, bewitching witch. They hooked a thumb into the side of her shorts snagging her panties along the way. They took a moment to enjoy the sensual slide of the silk until Hermione's hand joined theirs in an effort to help them remove the barrier that was keeping them from final completion.

"What the bloody fuck?"

Remus raised his head, incensed at the interruption, and sent a growl at the man who stood in the room. "Get out!" He ordered; his face darkly ominous.

"Remus, mate what the bloody hell are you doing?"

Hermione's pleasure addled brain was confused. Why had Remus stopped? She wiggled against him in distress. Remus looked down at her and the fierce passion in those amber-blue eyes took her breath away and made her ache in places she didn't know existed. Without taking his eyes off her face, Remus asked in a deadly soft whisper, "Are you deaf, human?" Followed by an angrily snapped, "Get out!"

Sirius blinked. Had Remus just called him human? "Holy shit," he exclaimed, exhaling sharply. "Moony?" He questioned quietly, but it couldn't be! It was impossible! It was more than five days until the full moon. Yet, the evidence was there right before him. It was definitely Moony, and he had Hermione pinned to the floor. This was not good.

Sirius recognized immediately that making any sudden movements toward Remus' alter-ego right now would be a mistake, and showing any interest in Hermione and her plight would a mistake of epic proportions. It didn't take a genius to see that she had Moony territory written all over her. Instead, Sirius dipped his head acknowledging Moony with this sign of respect.

Moony accepted his gesture, and showed as much by the toothy smile he sent to Sirius. It was a start he supposed but it didn't really go far at making Sirius feel better. Moony's smiled had appeared amiable enough but Sirius recognized the predatory threat beneath its benign veneer. Carefully, so as not to alarm him, Sirius got on his knees keeping his gaze on Moony and only lowering it from those golden orbs until he was finally on all fours.

Sirius knew that the only way Moony wouldn't regard him as threat was to show that he was submissive to him. Sirius supposed he could have transformed into Padfoot, but being in his Animagi form wouldn't be much help to Hermione. Hellfire and damnation, Sirius wasn't sure he'd be any help whatsoever in any form.

Moony inhaled deeply taking in the scents of the room, satisfied with his findings he addressed Sirius. "Padfoot, it is you," he cocked his head to the side, and then commented, sounding curious, "but not you."

Yeah, well I could the same of you too mate! Sirius, in all his days as Remus' friend, could say with certainty that he had never seen him like this. This, this… whatever it was… semi-transformation? Partial transformation? Whatever the hell it was, it was a new one for sure!

Sirius really wanted to address Hermione to find out if she was okay, but knew it would be an absolute disaster to do so. He did the next best thing. "Is Hermione all right?" He asked in a slow, tentative manner trying to sound as deferential as possible.

At hearing her name, Hermione automatically turned her head to the side and peered at Sirius from within the cage of Moony's arms. Sirius peeked at her quickly from beneath the hair hanging in his face. He kept it brief because anything longer than a quick peek was bound to aggravate Moony, and he most assuredly did not want to do that.

Sirius, who had had been startled out of his mind before, was totally gobsmacked! It had taken only that single moment for his brain to register what the exact look on Hermione's face had been, and even then he had to pass it through his brain twice to make sure he was processing it correctly. To his shock and confused dismay, Hermione didn't look at all frightened for her life, not even close! There had been a look on her pretty features that Sirius had himself received many times while hovering over a ready and willing witch, and so he recognized it for what it was; a wild, voluptuous yearning.

"The well-being of my witch is of no concern to you." Moony replied, a threat of violence entering his voice once more. "But, as we are friends of old I will say that she is unharmed, and will remain so."

Sirius was overcome with relief. Hermione was fine. Well, not fine exactly but at least Moony hadn't hurt her. And what was all this 'my witch' stuff?

Sirius decided to try a new tactic. "Your witch?" he asked, a nervous tick beginning to jump in his cheek. "I don't think I understand." An understatement if there ever was one.

"Hermione is my Chosen One."

Chosen One? He couldn't possibly be talking about… no, it was too crazy.

"What about Nymphadora?" Sirius hoped that this little reminder would bring Remus to the forefront.

Moony gave a negligent shrug before saying, "Regrettable, but she was never the Chosen One. My other half will miss her, she was kind to him, but he will not mourn her loss for long."

"How can you say that?" Sirius asked, feeling sorry for his cousin even though mere hours ago he was encouraging Remus to take up with the young witch situated below him. Sirius didn't actually think he'd do it! Steadfast Remus might not want to marry Nymphadora, but he was dedicated to her in his own fashion. "She loves you!"

"Not I," Moony disagreed immediately. "She is infatuated with the other one who inhabits this body. He knows, although he refuses to acknowledge it, but the truth of the matter is she was nothing short of a temporary diversion. Now, this one," Moony stated with a pointed look down at Hermione, "is what I have wanted for many long empty years." He ran a possessive hand down the length of Hermione's arm. Sirius saw her shudder, and he was pretty damn sure that it wasn't out of disgust.

"Remus," Sirius entreated his friend. "Are you in there at all?"

Sirius saw something flicker behind Moony's eyes and then watched in astonishment as the dark amber receded to a pinpoint leaving the blue that Sirius was much more accustomed to.

"Avert your eyes," Remus directed him calmly.

Sirius' dark brows knitted together in confusion. "Huh?" was his less than verbose reply.

"Hermione isn't decent."

Sirius took a closer look at Hermione noting the tattered shreds of her blouse and the way her lacy bra was pushed to the side exposing her…

Sirius Black, man about town and lover to many, many witches, blushed like a school boy. But, he couldn't seem to look away. It was kind of like watching a train wreck, you knew it was wrong to stare but you couldn't seem to stop doing it anyway.

Remus shielded Hermione's body with his own before growling out, "Sirius!"

Sirius jumped slightly and said with forced panache, "It isn't as if I've never seen a naked woman before." Gesturing toward Hermione, he continued in what he hoped was a blasé tone, "There's nothing there that's any great mystery."

"This particular body is a mystery to you," Remus countered angrily. "Now… look away or better yet turn your back!"

No fucking way, Sirius thought to himself as he stared staunchly at the empty space several feet above Hermione. He was not leaving his back exposed, not with Moony still lurking in the deep depths of Remus' eyes. Remus may be dominant at the moment, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.

"I won't pounce on you, I promise." Remus rushed to assure him as if reading his mind.

"No offence, mate, but you really can't say that for certain." Sirius met Remus' gaze head on. "Can you?"

After a small, tense pause Remus answered his question. "No," was his quiet rejoinder. "Just keep looking up and away, okay?"

Sirius nodded.

It was Hermione's shivering that drew Remus' attention back to her once more. While he'd been busy speaking with Sirius, she'd rolled to the side away from where his friend was stationed. Her face was blanketed by her hand while her arm lay over her chest effectively covering her nudity. Her shoulders were shaking and Remus felt a surge of contempt at himself for making this defenseless woman cry and not just any woman: Hermione, someone he admired and cared for greatly. Was it any wonder she was weeping? She'd trusted him and he'd betrayed that trust by attacking her!

"There was no attack," Moony intervened sharply, outraged at Remus' summation of the situation.

Remus felt a fiery, red-hot anger engulf his sensibilities, and he barked back furiously, "Enough!" Moony blinked at the depth of ire his normally placid other half was displaying. "Get back mongrel!" Remus spat.

Moony bristled at this disparaging description, but to Remus' relief he turned and with a lazy, rolling gait disappeared into the unknown abyss from whence he came. Remus visibly slumped and let out an exhausted sigh, all the pugnacity drained out of him at Moony's departure.

With grave gentleness Remus tucked his robes around Hermione's still shaking form. He wanted to comfort her, to pull her close and ease her distress, but he was afraid. Afraid of what might happen if he did give into this powerful urge to do so. What if Moony came surging back? He couldn't risk it.

"Can you take her to her room, Sirius?" It pained him to have to ask his friend to do what he wished and wanted to do, but it was better this way, safer for all of them.

Sirius could tell that is friend was eaten up with guilt and sorrow, and by the complete blue of Remus' steady stare, he felt safe in approaching them.

Nodding his head up and down, Remus stated quietly, "He's gone." For now, he added silently.

Sirius took a step forward the pair and then was completely taken off guard when someone shrieked, "Incarcerous!" Thick ropes wound themselves tightly around his torso pinning his arms to his sides. Then before he could confront his attacker, Sirius felt the dark closing in and him.