Hours later, Hermione finally put down the last of the books she had been searching through and rubbed her sore eyes. She and Remus had been working in near silence ever since the others had left. Between them lay parchment scrawled with notes taken from the books that were piled around them on the floor.
Remus looked over at Hermione with a gentle smile. "I'm glad you're here" he told her, pulling his glasses off and rubbing his nose.
"Why?" Hermione asked, pleasantly surprised by the remark. She had felt very keenly her lack of knowledge on the subject they were researching and was sure Remus had noticed the gap in her learning.
Remus' eyebrows rose. "Have you any idea how long this would have taken me on my own, Kitty? I'm sure you have noticed by now how much of a nightmare it is to make Sirius or James sit down and patiently work at something, and as for Peter, well, I don't think he'd have understood what he was looking for." He stretched out his thin frame, before flopping down on his stomach to lie close beside Hermione, where their pile of notes lay.
The speed of the movement made Hermione tense. Willing her heart to slow, she felt a blush creep up her face as she knew that Remus would have sensed her reaction. Remus' eyes flicked up to meet hers and the intense amber of his gaze made her aware of his inhuman side, far more than ever before. It seemed as though this other side of him grew in dominance as he pushed himself up so he was sitting even closer to her, again in that same movement which was almost too fast to see. Leaning forward, eyelids slid shut over those glowing eyes as he softly inhaled.
A second later, Remus was sitting back slightly, looking at Hermione sharply. "You know about me" he said; a statement rather than a question. "Who told you?"
Hermione, deciding instantly that denial was not an option, thought fast. "No-one did" she answered, truthfully. "I worked it out."
Remus snorted. "You've not been here long enough" he said. His voice grew softer, almost seductive as he whispered "I won't be angry with you; just tell me."
"Honestly, no-one told me" Hermione protested, alarmed by his reaction and hoping she sounded as sincere as she, in fact, was. The last thing she needed now was for Remus to fall out with his friends. She needed his intelligence too much, and she had a hunch that the marauders would have to stay a close team for her mission to succeed. "I met my first werewolf a couple of years ago now; I know what to look for."
Remus looked hard at her for a moment, as if judging the truth of her words. Relaxing slightly, he leaned forward again. "Why aren't you afraid?" he asked her, his voice still soft, but with an underlying challenge in his tone.
Hermione felt her reason begin to slip away as his amber eyes darkened and he leaned closer still. And then she knew what it was to be afraid of Remus Lupin. It was almost as if she was being tested and she knew she was going to fail. And then the door swung open and she looked up in time to see the retreating back of Sirius Black.
Seconds later, James was standing over them, an accusing look in his hazel eyes. "What just happened?" he asked sternly, folding his arms and glaring down at Hermione. "Kitty, what did you do?"
Hermione didn't even answer, but stood and ran from the room, hearing James' cold words echoing inside her head as she stumbled down the stairs and through the common room to the portrait hole. Wishing the marauder's map had already been created, Hermione headed instinctively for nearest door out into the school grounds. Knowing Sirius' hatred of being cooped up inside from her own time, she slipped out into the dark and chose a path which she knew led away from all other school buildings, where Sirius could guarantee to be alone. She crept along in the dim moonlight, knowing deep down how futile the search was. In his animagus form, Sirius' heightened senses would be able to keep him out of sight if he did not wish to be found. But this also meant that he would be able to hear her from much further away than normal. Finding herself close to the forbidden forest, she stood still and raised her voice. "I'm sure you can hear me, Sirius. I know you will be able to keep ahead of me for as long as you want to. I know what you think you saw, but won't you at least hear an explanation?" She stood listening for a few moments, and then leant back against a tree with a sigh. It seemed like she would have to play a waiting game. Pulling out her wand, she performed a warming spell and prepared to wait. She knew that Sirius' canine nose would catch her scent and she hoped that she knew him as well as she thought she did. The Sirius Black she had come to know would not be able to resist this argument.
She did not know how long she waited. She had sat with her back to the tree at the edge of the forest for so long that she had started to doze. There had been no sign of Sirius for hours, and Hermione was beginning to question her conviction that he would come to find her. But it was still hours before dawn when Hermione saw a dark shape at the edge of the forest, not too far from her, and she recognised the stance of Sirius sitting several feet away, still in his canine form. She watched him for a long moment before his outline shuddered and changed. She made no sound to show that she had spotted him, but waited without moving, feeling her heart began to beat faster as the anxiety caught up with her.
When the waiting had become unbearable, Sirius finally stood. "Well, Kitty?" he called out, his usual velvet tone had lost its warmth and Hermione realised suddenly that she might have failed her task, just as she was beginning to understand what it might have been.
"You want to hear what you really saw?" Hermione asked him, keeping her voice as light as she could, and trying to control the shakiness of her breathing.
Sirius strode towards her, menacingly, and at last Hermione knew his temper was about to be let loose. "What I really saw?" Sirius began, his words crackled with anger. "I know what I saw; my two supposed friends doing everything they can to make sure we fail in what I was asked to do. Do you realise how serious this is, Kitty? My life, and so many others are at stake here, but you don't care. You promised to help me and I really thought you meant it. Or have you been lying to me since we first met?"
Hermione winced at the last remark, as she had lied to everyone she had met since travelling through the painting all those weeks ago.
Sirius noticed her movement and scowled. "Was that too close to the mark? Why didn't you just tell me you would rather sit in a makeshift library with Remus then help to save my life? I know I'm being selfish here, forcing the whole me getting killed issue into all this but really, doesn't it mean anything at all to you? I had thought that we were close, Kitty. I can't boast that many good friends, but I thought I could trust the ones I had; it doesn't feel good to find out that I was wrong."
Hermione stayed still and let Sirius vent out all of his anger on her. In a way she felt that she deserved it. It was true that Remus had distracted her from what they were working on. It was also true that she had lied to everyone; she had even lied about her own name. She managed to look up at him and felt a wave of despair crash over her, swirling into the guilty pool of her thoughts. But then a picture of her old friends, Harry and Ron, came into her mind. She thought of Harry's tragic start in life and the difficulties he had faced every day since. She remembered Cedric Diggory and the brutal end he had met. And lastly she thought of the Sirius Black she had known; who had lost two of his best friends, and was put in Azkaban by another that he had trusted. She could not let that happen; Sirius did not deserve to lose all that he loved. So she would not crumble under Sirius' accusations; her mission was too important. Too many people would be affected if she could not be strong.
"Sirius, listen to me" Hermione said, her voice miraculously steady. "I know what Remus is. He found out this evening and was amazed when I told him it didn't scare me. He couldn't believe that his lycanthropy did not horrify me and I think he was trying to see if I was lying. That's when you came in." She had been carefully watching his reaction as she spoke and watched hope wrestle with the anger in his eyes.
"How did you find out about Remus?" Sirius asked, distracted by what he had clearly not been expecting.
Hermione shrugged. "I was taught by a werewolf for a year; I know the signs" she said.
"So you weren't …" Sirius broke off and looked down at her, the hurt draining from his expression and being replaced by something softer and much more warm.
Hermione shook her head quickly. "I think we have found all the information we need to make your map" she told him. "That's what we spent the whole evening doing. You can think what you like about me, but do you really think Remus would abandon you so easily? You are one of the few people in his life that have ever stood by him who know who he really is. Do you think he would give you up to spend time with some girl?"
Unexpectedly, Sirius threw his arms around her and held her tight. "I overreacted, didn't I?" he said quietly, after a long silence.
"It can't have looked good from where you were standing" Hermione managed to reply, still a little shaky from the sudden embrace. She could not help but realise just how good it felt to be in Sirius' arms like this.
She heard rather than saw Sirius' smile as he replied; "I know, but I also know Remus, and you. You'd never disobey a teacher; Dumbledore only gave us one night to finish an assignment. Neither of you would be distracted until it was complete."
Hermione aimed a punch at his side, but her fist only made half of the tiny distance before it was caught in a much larger hand. She looked up to see the smirk on Sirius' face.
"Never fight a Quidditch player" he told her. "You'll lose every time." He released her from the tight embrace but kept hold of the hand she had punched with and uncurled her fingers so that he could hold her small hand in his larger one. "Come on" he said. "We've got Dumbledore's map to finish."
As they crept back through the grounds towards the castle, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps she would not fail after all.