A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I didn't forget about you, I'm just swamped with my studies and my other story... I hope you'd like this and that I will post the next chapter soon.

By the way, AmyRenee55 - My 100th favorite. It's just amazing how much love I get for this story, it means a lot to me and I love you all back!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter (Sigh)


September – December 1993.

Going back to school, Hermione now realized why Rufus was so wary of her, as well as why her father sent her mother away when he found out what she was.

With her new hunter perspective, everything – starting with the creatures they learned about in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures and ending with the ghosts that were everywhere – seemed like a threat. And having a werewolf as her professor certainly didn't help.

It took her all of one month to recognize the symptoms of him being a werewolf. The way he was always ill and missing classes close to the full moon, and his Boggart turning not into a crystal ball as everyone thought, but into the moon at the night of a transformation. She had to admit that Lupin was an exceptionally good teacher, and after the task Professor Snape gave them, she had learned about the Wolfsbane Potion and came to the realization that Dumbledore must be making sure he's taking it.

She was less nervous about it than she thought she would be, but she still kept an eye on him, and had taken a habit of carrying a silver knife around. Can't be too careful, can you?

The beginning of that year was hard. After the events of the previous year, Hermione needed her friends by her side, but when her new cat, Crookshanks, did what every other cat would do and tried to hunt Scabbers – Ron's rat – her friends turned against her.

Things were getting worse by the day with the three of them, and she let herself sink into the work overload that came from taking more subjects than her timetable could fit. She used her time turner regularly, living nearly every day twice and sometimes even three times. She was exhausted to a level she didn't even know was possible, and was waiting impatiently to go back home for the Christmas break when a letter came in from her father.

Mya,

I'm following a hunt with Rufus and it seems to be more complicated than we thought. Do you mind staying the break at Hogwarts?

Send answer when you can,

Love, Dad.

PS – Sam and Dean told me to send you hugs.

She felt a sting of pain in her heart at the thought of staying in Gryffindor tower with nobody but Ron and Harry, but then thought about it as an opportunity to mend things with them. It surely couldn't get any worse than it already was.

How mistaken has she been.

The Firebolt – the stupid Firebolt that someone sent Harry.

"Because I thought – and Professor McGonagall agrees with me – that the broom was probably sent to Harry by Sirius Black!" she justified her actions, unwilling to apologize.

She would never apologize for doing what she thought was best in order to keep those she loved safe.

Hermione busied herself in schoolwork yet again, thinking back to the beginning of her first year at Hogwarts. She didn't realize it, but she didn't really have any friends other than Harry and Ron. To the rest of their class, she was nothing but an annoying know-it-all.

So she comforted herself with that one last line in the letter, scribbled as an afterthought but meaning the world to her.

Dean told me to send you hugs.

She didn't know what to think about Dean just yet. She cared a lot about him, but she wasn't certain if just as a friend or something more than that. Did he even like her as something more than that? She wasn't sure how anybody could.

She wasn't particularly pretty and her personality certainly wasn't the best, as her fellow students never failed to mention. Dean was constantly moving from town to town, he probably met dozens of other girls – prettier girls – and she wasn't a fool to think he would stop to think about her before dating another. Why would he? It wasn't as if something was going on between them. Did she want something to go on between them? Did he?

The thoughts swirled in her mind every night before she passed out from sheer exhaustion, if nothing else, and every night she came to the same conclusion.

I'm just fooling myself, she thought. Dean would never want me.


June 1994.

The last day of tests in Hermione's third year of Hogwarts was the most stressful day in a very stressful year.

Unlike her friends, who only had two exams that day, Hermione had had three, all at same hour, and she had to use her time turner to arrive to all of them. By the time she reached her DADA test, the last one she had, she was utterly exhausted.

Professor Lupin arranged an obstacle course for them, which consisted of fighting Grindylows, Red Caps and Hinkypunks and facing a Boggart.

She passed the first three obstacles without blinking before entering the box where the Boggart was waiting for her. She was nervous, seeing as she hadn't faced a Boggart before and couldn't guess what shape it would take. After a moment or two of silence, she saw someone approaching her.

Dean. That was odd. She wasn't scared of Dean, why would her Boggart take his form? But then she noticed that small detail that differed the Boggart from her real friend.

"Ri –" she stuttered. "Riddikulus!"

The Boggart hadn't as much as flinched. He was still walking towards her, only now her father accompanied him.

"Riddikulus?" she asked more than said, uncertain with herself, and suddenly Sam and John were heading in her direction, too. All four of them sporting pitch-black eyes.

Hermione did the first thing that came to her mind, dropping her wand and chanting verses in Latin to keep them away. All it did was make the Boggart laugh.

"We've got you now," Demon-Dean said.

"You've got nowhere to run," Demon-Bobby added.

"No!" she screamed. "No! Help me!"

And suddenly Professor Lupin was there, standing between her and the Boggart which now transferred into a silvery full moon. He helped her out to where Harry and Ron were waiting, worried.

"What happened?" Ron asked.

"P- P- Professor McGonagall," Hermione stuttered a lie. "Sh- She said I failed everything!"

Harry and Ron laughed at that but Lupin didn't, and though he didn't tell on her lie she could still feel his eyes on her back for the rest of the exam.

Later that day, they were inside the shrieking shack; Harry, Ron, herself, and Sirius Black.

Harry had just charged on Black, the older man overpowered him and held him by the throat. Hermione jumped at him, kicking his face with a movement she and Dean had practiced during the summer when Crookshanks – the cat she had gotten for her birthday – had joined the fighting, scratching his way through.

Harry jumped and took hold of the wand Black disarmed earlier, screaming for her to get out of the way. She moved aside and Harry pointed the tip of his wand at the mass murderer in the room.

They had started talking, Sirius trying to get Harry to listen to him but Harry refusing, accusing him of killing his parents. Repeating parts of conversations they had had during the year, about Black selling Lily and James to Voldemort, about Harry hearing his mother begging to Voldemort not to kill him every time the Dementors are coming.

Hermione looked at the exchange, satisfied at the bleeding nose and black eye she given Black. He deserved it. He deserved it all and everything that was coming, but she knew Harry wouldn't kill him.

She knew that even if it came to him or them, Harry might not be able to do it. He was too good for that, too naïve.

She, on the other hand…

Her thoughts were disturbed when she heard footsteps coming their way.

"We're up here!" she screamed. "We're up here! Sirius Black! Quick!"

Professor Lupin came, barging in, looking at the scene for less than a second before disarming Harry and Hermione yet again. His gaze returned to Black.

"Well, well, Sirius," he said. "Looking rather ragged, aren't we? Finally, the flesh
reflects the madness within."

"Well, you'd know all about the madness within, wouldn't you?" Black questioned, before the duo hugged.

"I don't believe it!" Hermione screamed. Lupin let go of Black and turned to her. "You…" she stuttered. "You and him!"

"Hermione, calm down…"

But she had already pulled the knife out of her boot. "I didn't tell anyone!" she shrieked. "I've been covering up for you!"

Lupin's gaze fixed on the knife as he swallowed. "Silver, I presume?"

"Damn straight," Hermione said.

"So I didn't imagine it about your Boggart today, after all," he mused. "A hunter in Hogwarts."

"A what?" Harry asked.

"No!" Hermione screamed, angry at the man she'd been trusting all year long. "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too. He's a werewolf!"

Lupin looked at them all calmly, before saying, "Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione. Only one out of three, I'm afraid." The look in his eyes was almost mocking in Hermione's opinion. "I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don't want Harry dead. But I won't deny that I am a werewolf."

Ron moved on the bed and Lupin stepped towards him, but Hermione held her knife at him.

"Get away from him, werewolf!"

"How long have you known?" Lupin questioned, a glimmer of hurt in his eyes.

"Since the first full moon of the year," she said. "I learned it all during the summer, so it was really piece of cake. You didn't even do such a great job at hiding it. And when Snape gave that essay –"

"He'll be delighted," Lupin said, almost mockingly. "He assigned that essay hoping someone would realize what my symptoms meant... Did you check the lunar chart and realize that I was always ill at the full moon? Or did you realize that the Boggart changed into the moon when it saw me?"

"Both," Hermione said, causing Lupin to force a laugh.

"You're the cleverest witch of your age I've ever met, Hermione."

"I'm not," Hermione whispered. "If I'd been a bit cleverer, I'd have told everyone what you are! Or, better yet, use some of what I was taught over the summer."

Lupin eyed the silver knife carefully as Hermione raised it higher into the air. "Let's be careful with that now," he said slowly. "Somebody might get hurt."

"That's half the point," Hermione replied. "Give me one reason not to."

"Because I can explain," he said. "And because by the looks of it, your friends also deserve an explanation."

Hermione looked from the corner of her eye at Harry and Ron, who looked startled from seeing their best friend the way she was the past couple of minutes. Slowly, she stepped backwards and looked at Lupin with anticipation, playing with the knife in her hand.

"Be careful," Black said, worryingly but she waved the warning away.

Lupin returned their wands to them and started explaining his story, of how he was bitten as a child, how Dumbledore found a way for him to attend Hogwarts and how his friends turned Animagi so he won't be alone. As the story went on, Hermione felt a tinge of pain, thinking that all werewolves had stories like that – families, people they loved.

She pushed the thought away from her head quickly. They were monsters. That's what she was taught.

Professor Snape interrupted the conversation, and they disarmed him, knocking him unconscious as they did, before Lupin turned to look at Hermione.

"Your turn," was all he said but Hermione took a deep breath before turning to her best friends and revealing the secret of who she truly was, on her father's side, at least.