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I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire	By : bitterfig Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Remus/Hermione Views: 3469 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire
- 1
Author: Bitterfig

Title: I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire

Characters: Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger

Summary: Set immediately after HPB. Harry and Ron are dead; Hermione is given the opportunity to join the Death Eaters. Remus Lupin is her initiation rite. But it’s not AU.

Beta: Nzomniac

Word Count: 2488

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Major angst. Nasty, ugly Torture, violence, some mention of sex with implications of something very unpleasant.

I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire

            After the Death Eaters captured him, they kept Remus Lupin drugged most of the time. Occasionally, he would find himself in a state of half awareness, almost waking, but these would be cut abruptly short when someone forced a potion down his throat. Black dreamlessness would overtake him once more.

            He didn’t know how much time passed, days or weeks or months. He was so heavily sedated that he might have even transformed, unaware. Yet, the part of him that flickered with consciousness was always glad to return to oblivion. He did not want to imagine what waited for him if and when he awoke.

            He woke to something far different than he had expected.

            He was sprawled on the floor, some kind of hooded cape draped around him. Beneath it, he was barefoot, naked, his hands bound behind his back with what felt like chains. He had anticipated all this but not the room he found himself in when he managed to toss off the hood of the cape.

            It was not a dungeon but what appeared to be a Muggle bedroom, specifically a young woman’s. The walls were papered with flyers from PETA and Amnesty International along with what appeared to be an all-inclusive display of magazine pictures showing Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. There were several overflowing bookcases, a personal computer, and on a shelf over the bed with its tidy blue and white spread, a collection of dolls. They were plastic and porcelain, all different sizes but every single one of them was of a witch. Glinda and the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, a tiny 1960’s poppet with purple skin and green hair in a vinyl mini dress, pale gothic maidens in tall peaked hats and blonde Barbie dolls in Halloween gowns with glittering purple and orange offsetting the black.

            “Professor Lupin, you’re finally awake,” Hermione Granger said. He was almost overcome with relief at seeing her. She was simply dressed in Muggle clothing, jeans and a black-and-white, striped pullover. He was reassured by how collected she seemed, how grown-up.

            “Thank goodness, it’s you,” he said. “Where are we? How did I get here? I was captured, but I don’t remember much after that…”

            “We’re at my parents’ house. This is my room,” she said. She helped him to his feet and led him over to the bed. “Sit down, please. You should be feeling fairly well, considering. I gave you a potion so you wouldn’t be ill or groggy.”

            “Thank you,” he said. “That was very thoughtful of you.” She smiled at him. Her smile seemed too sad, too full of regret for such a young girl.

            “You were always grateful, Professor Lupin,” Hermione said. “So used to being reviled and stomped on that you’ll do anything for a person who shows you the slightest kindness. You deserve so much better than you’ve gotten.” Her tone was sincere, but there was almost something mocking in her words. She had never spoken to him like this before, so personally. He wasn’t sure how to respond. He tried to change the subject to more practical matters.

            “My hands are chained,” he said. “Is there anything you could do…?” She shook her head and began examining the titles on her bookcase.

            “It really is a thankless world,” she sighed. “I always worked so hard. I researched and studied and I thought things over. When I had something to say, I was usually right. I got Ron and Harry out of trouble so many times, I was right so many times, you’d think they would have been a little grateful, at least thought enough of me to listen.” She pulled a book from the case, a paperback copy of the Malleus Maleficarum and sat down on the bed beside Lupin.

“If they’d listened to me,” she went on leafing through the book, “Harry’s Godfather would still be alive. Harry would never have gone to the Ministry of Magic that night. Voldemort wouldn’t have been able to lure him with those dreams if he’d learned Occlumency properly as I suggested. And last year, I told him to concentrate on what Headmaster Dumbledore needed from him instead of chasing after Draco Malfoy, but he delayed and delayed and had to do things his way. He and Ron, they always had to do things their way--without a plan or any idea what they were getting into or taking the time to let an adult know. And now they’ve finally managed to get themselves killed.”

“What?” Her casual pronouncement hit him like a blow. “Harry and Ron are dead? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he asked rather harshly.

“I had to find this book,” she said holding it up. “Have you ever read it?”

“Malleus Maleficarum also known as the Witch Hammer,” Lupin said. “It’s a vile thing, a torture manual. I didn’t mean to be short with you. I know you must be devastated, I’m sure you don’t want to think about this, but what happened with your friends? What happened to Ron and Harry?”

“Harry had a notion he could take on Voldemort,” she said. Her voice was firm, almost angry. “It was stupid and I told him so, but Ron would rather do anything than wait and think things out and since I couldn’t stop them, I went along. Voldemort killed them both.”

“I’m sorry, Hermione,” Lupin said. “I’m so sorry this had to happen. It’s a horrible thing but at least you survived, at least you were able to get away.”

“I didn’t,” she said.

“What do you mean? You’re here at your parents’-- you’re in your room. You must have escaped somehow…”

“I didn’t escape, Professor Lupin. I joined up. Harry and Ron were dead. What would it have served for me to die as well? I had to make the best of it. I know Voldemort’s evil, but the status quo of the Wizarding world is evil in its own right, in a more subtle form. No one knows that better than you. As a werewolf, you’ve always been a second-class citizen. When Voldemort overthrows the Ministry, I’ll be there, building the new order.   I can be an influence; I can make a difference.”

He could hardly speak; somehow, the shock of her casual words had all but struck him dumb. “What are you telling me, Hermione? That you’re working with Voldemort? That you’re a Death Eater?”

“Not yet.” Her wand was in her hand, and he realized he had not moved except by her urgings since he had woken up. “Just like school, there has to be some kind of test.”

“Me?” he asked. She nodded. “And you always exceed expectations when you’re tested, don’t you?” She nodded again, flicked her wand. He was jerked upward by his arms till the chains around his wrists met the ceiling, holding fast. Her magic held the chains in place, but not him, and the weight of his body wrenched his shoulders mercilessly as he dangled from them. He gasped at the burning pain but didn’t scream.

“It’s called Strappado,” she said. “It tears your shoulders out of the joints. I can make it worse.” She gestured downward with her wand and his body was pulled downward ripping him inside. This time he screamed and she let him.

“I’ve cast a silencing spell,” she said. “No one will hear. The house is empty. I thought it would be safer to do this while my parents were away on holiday.” She eased off now, letting him breathe again.

“Why would you want to do this here, in your parents’ house, in your own bedroom?” he gasped through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want you to forget who I am. No matter how bad it gets, I want you to remember it’s me, that it’s Hermione. That I’m seventeen and you were my teacher. I want you to remember that you liked me, and that I liked you, and that we worked together once. Because I know you, Professor Lupin, and I know that everything I’m going to do to you will be so much the worse because it comes from me. I have to take whatever advantage I can. You’ll be hard to break. You’re used to physical pain. I think you might even like it.”

She took her school bag from the desk and brought out a bundle wrapped in dark cloth. She laid it on the bed, untying the ribbon that held it. Inside were cruel and gleaming knives, sharpened hooks and long slender needles. Hermione caught up a handful of the needles.

“I made them myself,” she said. “They hurt you from the inside out. They reach into your organs and make them twist and break apart. I’m very good at Dark Magic.”

“You don’t have to do this, Hermione,” he said. Despite the pain, he spoke with calm authority, as a teacher, as an adult. “Whatever information you’ve been sent to get from me, whatever you need to know, I’ll tell you. The Dark Lord wants you to destroy yourself but you don’t have to. I’ll tell you anything you want.”

“I know you’re not just saying that to spare yourself a little pain,” she said. “You really believe that the soul of one little girl matters in the balance of things. That’s why you’ll always be a weak link.”

She ran her hand over his torso; the cloak that had covered him had long since fallen away. She pressed the point of a needle between his ribs. “This is going to go into your lung,” she said. “Just for a moment, it’s too early to destroy something so valuable. I have to do this slowly, but I want to give you a taste.”

She drove the needle into his body and he felt a suffocating agony, a breathlessness that did not allow him to scream. She drew the needle out, a single drop of blood glistening at its tip. He gasped, trying to catch his breath. Even as the worst of the needle’s effects ebbed, something was still not right. Something inside him had been damaged.

“Please, Hermione, listen to me,” he begged. “Don’t go any further. Voldemort wants you to do this; he wants to make you a monster. Don’t let him twist you the way he twisted Peter, Severus, Draco and everyone else he’s ever touched. Just tell me what they sent you for, tell me what you need to know.”

“I expected something like this from you,” she said. “So did the Dark Lord. That’s why he’s asked me to do this, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. There is no information you can give me. Lord Voldemort knows everything. He used Legilimency on you; he knows all your secrets now.” She lowered her voice and drew closer, her hand dropped to cup his penis and balls.

“All your dirty little secrets. I always thought you were a romantic, but you’re really a bit of a slut. All those men whose names you didn’t even know while we thought you were mourning for Sirius. But that wasn’t about sex, was it? It was more like self-flagellation for all those things you had to be ashamed of. Not just for living after he died, but for being with him after Azkaban--out of pity, out of obligation when you didn’t want him any more, when you were afraid of him and revolted by him.” She slipped the needle into the sac of his testicles, then waited patiently for him to finish screaming.

“There are so many parts of the human body that are sensitive but not essential,” she mused. “We could go on like this for hours. We probably will. When you start begging me to kill you, I can heal you and we can start again.” She pressed a needle into his abdomen and he writhed even as he hung.

“The Dark Lord also told me what you did to Harry third year,” she said. “How you tell yourself it was just that one time, but that doesn’t make it okay, does it? Of course you know that, that’s why you punish yourself.” She sank another needle through his flesh, into the muscles of his legs, knotting and shredding them. “You won’t have to punish yourself any more. I’ll give you enough suffering to take away your guilt.”

She took a barbed hook from the cloth that slid on her finger like a ring. She dragged it along his chest, opening a bloody gash. She reached up and caught a handful of his hair, pulled him towards her.

“I’ll only take one eye for now,” she whispered. “I want you to see.”

The door swung open and Luna Lovegood walked in.

“I know you said I ought not to come in,” she said, “but I thought I might be of some help.” Then she saw what was happening and her cloudy, grey eyes popped wide open. “Hermione, what are you doing to Professor Lupin?”

“What the Dark Lord requires…” Hermione began, then her voice trailed off. The bedroom, the blood, the tools, the naked man hanging from the ceiling all receded. The man and the two girls stood in Albus Dumbledore’s office before a mirror that bore the inscription erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

It was the day after Dumbledore’s funeral. An hour before, Luna had offered to lend Lupin and Hermione a hand gathering up the deceased headmaster’s personal effects. Hermione had rather ungraciously declined. “She doesn’t have a bit of sense,” Hermione had muttered to Lupin as they entered the office. “I can only imagine what she might get into in here.”

“Still,” he said, “I think you may have hurt her feelings.” Then Hermione had turned around the mirror that stood facing the wall...

Now she turned it back. “Harry told me about this,” Hermione said. “It’s called the Mirror of Erised. It shows you your heart’s desire.” And realizing what had happened, she gasped in horror and her hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t… Oh no… that wasn’t me. Please, Professor Lupin, you have to know I would never do that to you. I couldn’t. I’ve always protected you. I knew you were a werewolf most of third year but I never told. I protected you…” Then she paused. “Oh, Professor Lupin, that can’t be what you want.”

Lupin’s face had gone white-grey the moment the mirrors illusion was broken. He did not speak but backed away, turned and left the room.

“That couldn’t have been what we wanted,” Hermione said, not so much to Luna as herself. “It couldn’t have been.”

“What happened,” Luna asked, confused. “Did I disturb something? I only wanted to help.”
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I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire

I Show Not Your Face But Your Heart’s Desire