At the Moment

A HariPo fanfic

by mew-tsubaki

Note: J.K. Rowling's characters are in another companion story to my fics To the Future, From the Past, and In the Present. As usual, there are O.C.s, but duh, because Charlie's with an O.C. Anywho, please enjoy the story and let me know what you think of it in a review. BTW: I don't know how many chapters this'll last, but it will be shorter than the companion stories.

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The Eighth Hint

Another blood-curdling howl pierced the night.

Sirius turned back to the others. "I take it that Tonks is already at St. Mungo's, then," he said to Minerva.

She nodded. "Her parents are there with her. Molly and Arthur are on their way, too. Since Remus is her husband and you're a cousin, we figured both of you should be there."

The wizard grimaced. "Yes… Obviously, Dumbledore can't leave, but you should go now if you plan on being there, Minerva."

McGonagall nodded again and disappeared down the hall. Charlie was still dumbfounded, but Ginny looked at Sirius.

"Tonks is like family," Ginny told him. "I want to be there for her."

Charlie snapped back to reality, coming back from the thoughts of who his little sister was with and what was happening to a close family friend. "Should you really go?"

"I'm sure Dumbledore will understand if you escort Ginny there," Sirius told him, though Charlie didn't like taking suggestions from this sack of crap. "You should take the Floo Network, if you can."

Ginny nodded and Charlie took her hand. "Are you coming?" Charlie asked Sirius, though he wished he'd say no.

"I'll catch up with all of you later," Sirius yelled behind him as he ran down the hall.

"Where are you going?" Ginny hollered.

"To get Remus!!" The faster he ran, the more his body shifted until he was a black dog with matted fur. He turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

Charlie yanked on her hand to make her look at him. "We have to get going, Gin." He looked past her shoulder. "Atherton, if you could go and eat supper and not mention anything –about either situation –" he stated pointedly, "-I would appreciate it."

Miraphina nodded and then the two Weasleys were off.

"You're angry, aren't you?" Ginny asked her brother as they entered McGonagall's office and rushed to the fireplace.

Charlie grabbed a handful of Floo powder and waited until Ginny had her own. "Now's not the time or the place, Gin," was all he said.

Sullen, the witch stepped into the fireplace and dropped the powder. "St. Mungo's Hospital!!"

A second later, Ginny was on the floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies. Charlie came up behind her, and the two rushed to where McGonagall was waiting beside the main desk. Then the three were off into the labyrinth of corridors.

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Right as Ginny and Charlie had left, Ginny had looked back at Mira. The Hufflepuff took the chance to mouth 'I'm sorry.' She knew Ginny understood. Maybe if Charlie had not seen her standing there, gawking at Ginny and Professor Black inside, then maybe Ginny's relationship would still be secret. Forbidden, but a secret.

Miraphina returned to the Hufflepuff girls' dormitories and headed to her four-poster. She changed into her nightgown and sat on the edge of her bed. So much…too much had happened today. A Nestle Crunch bar entered her line of vision, and she looked up to see Dana and Cirdrine smiling at her with more candy bars.

"I heard you missed dinner, my good fellow," Dana said with a smirk.

"Who wants a sugar rush before bed?" Drina supplied, and she laughed with Dana.

The laughter was what finally broke the dam. Mira couldn't control it any more. She had to cry. Over Ginny, over Ginny and Black, over Ginny's family friend whom she didn't even know, over Grant –

And most of all, over Charlie.

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It was hours before Charlie saw Sirius and a human Remus step onto the floor of the Maternity Emergency Ward.

"We've been waiting all night long," Charlie stated as he led them to the others. "Where have you been?"

"Being a werewolf wasn't a choice, Charlie," Remus simply told him. No heat, no sadness. He said it with simple indifference.

They approached a narrow hallway, with a few chairs occupying both sides of it. Molly, Arthur, and Minerva were standing a few meters away from some room, and Ginny was sitting uncomfortably in one of the chairs. The three adults rushed Remus.

"She's in good hands," Minerva told him. "They're doing their best to take care of her."

"How bad is it?" Remus inquired. A scream shook all of them to their bones.

Molly forced a smile. "She's still going through this miscarriage. It began last night."

Sirius's expression was as shocked as the others' had been. "She's still-?! How can that be possible?!"

"It's the lycanthropy," Remus offered. "I'm surprised she's even made it through her first term."

Minerva nodded. "Lycanthropy is only transmitted through scratches and bites. I don't think I've ever heard of a child born a werewolf."

Remus rolled his shoulders in his anxiety. He sat down a seat over from Ginny. "The lycan blood isn't an allele or any other part of a chromosome. It's essentially a virus that attaches itself to the person's existing chromosomes. Their DNA is…mutated in a way. This mutation curses them with the need to change form in the full moon's light. The radiation from the sun's UV rays during the day is too much, and the moon's reflected light during its other stages isn't enough to cause a reaction, but the amount of radiation from the full moon's reflection of the sun's light is the correct amount to irritate the virus into action. We become wolves simply because that was the other part of the virus's gift; we were handed a bit of wolf DNA alongside the virus."

Ginny, Charlie, Sirius, Molly, and Arthur were overwhelmed with this intricate information. Who knew magic attacked in such a way?

Minerva pursed her lips. "The fetus is still developing even by the end of the first term, but it's obviously closer to what a newborn looks like than earlier in the term, and the fetus has already developed its major organs. In a sense, this young child might have begun to change if it truly received Remus's lycanthropy-infected genes and was developed enough."

"No wonder she's screaming," Ginny murmured, and then gulped.

There was another screech, and then the hall was filled with the average hubbub of a hospital. Remus looked at the doorway to what the others had told him and Sirius was Tonks's room. "I thought I was hard of hearing when she told me she was pregnant," Mooney said with a sad smile.

A doctor emerged from the room, and everyone was on their feet. Remus stepped forward. "You're Mrs. Lupin's husband, I presume?"

Remus nodded. "Is she all right?"

"See for yourself." The doctor led him away from the rest of the gang and into Tonks's room. The others would wait until the O.K. was given.

Sirius sat down in one of the chairs. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, moving on to pinch the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. He looked up and saw Arthur.

"You all right, Sirius?" he asked.

Charlie watched the Animagus look down at his dingy clothes. "Well, it could've been worse, but he didn't kill me. More importantly, he didn't scratch me."

Arthur clasped Sirius on the arm. "That's good."

Sirius half-smiled. "I s'pose…" Arthur nodded and moved away, and Sirius closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the white-washed wall. Ginny sat beside him, much to Charlie's dismay, and she poked Sirius in the arm.

"Were you fighting this whole time?" she asked. Her blues eyes were glassy.

"Well, I misplaced him for a few hours, but…yes." Sirius said something else that Charlie couldn't hear, and then he stood up, slightly wincing as blood rushed to his brain, and he stretched his arms and legs a bit. "See? I'm fine."

But she wasn't looking at him –rather, where his head had been. "You idiot," she breathed. "That's blood!"

His eyes followed to where she pointed at the wall. It was true; there was an oddly-shaped blotch of blood where he had rested. He involuntarily raised his arm and began to reach around to the back of his head. "But, he didn't scratch me…"

Ginny came to his side and peered at his injury. A hearty gasp escaped her lips. "Merlin, Sirius!! It's as if the skin back here was sheered off!!"

"I- Wha-?" He blinked several times in rapid succession, and the others turned their attention to them at the sound of Ginny's worry.

"What's wrong?" Molly asked her daughter.

Ginny hadn't torn her eyes off Sirius. "It's Sirius. He's hurt."

"No, I'm fine. I-" Sirius sucked in a breath and winced painfully when Ginny touched his head near the wound. He started to drop as if his legs had given out, but Ginny and Charlie caught him.

"Sirius!!"

"Okay, maybe not that fine…" Sirius feigned a wry grin. "But it's probably nothing."

"Nothing, my foot," Minerva spat. "You probably have a concussion. How did this happen?"

"He dropped me and I hit my head on a stone."

"Dropped you?"

"He was still transformed. He didn't know that he was holding me by my neck-"

"You idiot!!" Ginny told him. "You said to Charlie and me that you were going to get Lupin. Do you have any brains?!"

"Well, if none have leaked out the back…" His attempt at humor earned him nothing but smoldering looks from each of them.

"How I miss the days of handing you detention," Minerva hissed.

"We need to have him seen to, though," Arthur pointed out.

Ginny glared angrily at Sirius. "Yes. We do." She grasped his sleeve at the shoulder and shoved him back down in his seat. "No more making us worry, you dolt." Although she tried to pour venom into that last remark, the tears were pooling in her eyes, and she subtly wiped them away.

Charlie didn't like how Ginny's hatred toward Sirius had suddenly –how he despised the idea –become love. Luckily, their parents exchanged a fleeting, speculative glance.

Ah, yes, Charlie observed. They noticed something's up.

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Sirius walked back to the corridor where the others were after being patched up, covering his new bald spot with his hand. He forced a smile.

Ginny came up to him. "How was it?"

"Nasty old broad fixed everything but my hair," he stated through gritted teeth.

Molly rolled her eyes in a very Ginny-ish way. "Come here, darling. I've fixed more bald spots and missing eyebrows than one needs to in a lifetime."

Sirius stood still as Molly got her wand out. Meanwhile, he looked at Charlie and Ginny. Charlie shook his head. "Twins," Charlie and Ginny said in unison.

Afterwards, Remus emerged from Tonks's room, and Tonks's parents went back inside. Remus walked like a statue towards the group.

"How is she?" Charlie asked, but the awful feeling in his gut told him that this was probably the worst night of Lupin's life, maybe second to his being scratched by the werewolf Fenrir Greyback.

Remus smiled, but it was a fake one. "She survived. The fetuses…"

"Wait," Sirius cut in. "It was twins?"

He nodded. "They didn't survive. As Minerva suspected, they had started to transform. It almost tore Dora apart." He squinted to keep from crying. Remus inhaled and leaned on Minerva's shoulder when she offered it. He didn't say anything else.

In time and turn, the others visited with Tonks when she was ready. She looked like she had been through hell about three hundred times, but at least she was conscious. Her parents, Ted and Andromeda, stayed at her side the entire time. It helped Tonks some, but her skin was white, her hair was dark brown, and her eyes were the saddest things Charlie had ever seen in his life.

When Charlie exited the Hospital and took Ginny back to Hogwarts, he felt that he didn't want to go to his hut. However, the hut that had previously been Hagrid's was dark. Laurel was not home.

Of course she isn't, the Weasley brother told himself. May was their worst month by far. Not a day went by that they didn't argue. And now, now Miraphina was part of the equation.

When that thought hit him, he froze in front of his door.

No, that can't be right. She's one of my students. She's Ginny's age, for heaven's sake. I just think of her like a…like a kid sister! That's right! But he knew he couldn't fool himself as he draped his robes on the back of a chair.

Their hands joined together was like nothing he had ever felt before. The look in her eyes when his body had acted of its own accord and tugged her closer to him –he had never seen that before, not even in Laurel. And the look on her face when she told him she didn't want him as brother and then she corrected that, saying that she didn't need a big brother –that screamed volumes to him.

But… His resolve grew weaker as he sank into the big chair in front of the fireplace. Yes, he had seen Miraphina a few times outside of class, and yes, he spent most of her class time with her, speaking to her, but… But that doesn't mean she adds in in this situation.

Yet, even as he tried to convince himself of that, all he could think of was their hands together. And as he thought back on seeing Sirius's arms on Ginny's waist and Ginny's fingers in Sirius's hair-

All Charlie could picture was him and Miraphina instead.

He saw Miraphina loosing the blue ribbon his used to tie back his hair, he saw himself kissing her neck and jaw before finally stealing her breath away with his lips. Worst of all, he wanted it so badly that it was painful to sit still and wait for Laurel to come back when it wasn't Laurel he wanted.

Truly worst of all, he was unsure if Miraphina had realized the chemistry, the rightness between her and him. And it pained him.

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Charliephina happened quick, dinnit (as Mira would say; you'll get it once you read chapter 10)? Anywho, yes, I did what I did to Remus and Tonks, but there's a reason…and a whole story about it in In the Present, my RemusxLuna fanfiction. So go read that and the Ginrius story!!

Go on!! Read and review!! Those of you who've read my stuff a lot know how much I love feedback, especially the detailed stuff, so let me know what you think!

-mew-tsubaki