"Rise and shine, boys, we've got a busy day ahead of us!"
There were several groans as the Marauders each stuffed their heads under pillows or blankets and tried to ignore her presence. Hermione snorted and rolled her eyes and pulled out her wand, flicking it at their curtains to make them fly open and let even more light in. She grinned and laughed when James and Sirius groaned louder and hid more from her, whereas Remus sat up and looked at her sleepily, his hair severely messed up. Peter just thumped his head against his pillow.
"Come on, this is important," Hermione insisted.
"Are we in any danger?" Sirius asked, rather tauntingly, as he was not about to get up if it was something less than an emergency.
"You will be if you aren't dressed and downstairs in ten minutes," Hermione said, smiling sweetly at him and twirling her wand a little before stepping out of the dorms.
Ten minutes later, the boys were indeed dressed, but were piled up at the bottom of the stairs, Remus on the bottom and laughing as he fought with his friends. Hermione watched in slight amusement as they argued good-naturedly over something, ruffling each other's hair and poking one another with elbows. Hermione stood and looked down at them, crossing her arms over her chest. Remus was the first to notice and blush slightly, making her purse her lips and try not to grin.
"Alright, get off. Guys, get off," Remus demanded. They all stopped and looked up at Hermione, grimacing a little.
"At least you're dressed," she sighed, rolling her eyes and turning around as they untangled themselves.
"Hermione, this isn't a very good idea."
"Why not?" Hermione asked, not turning around from going down the tunnel, the light from her wand showing the way.
The Marauders were extremely nervous whenever she'd gotten closer to the Whomping Willow. They were beyond nervous when she grabbed a stick and poked the knothole. They were nearly having heart attacks when she climbed in and waved them in after her. They'd been trying to convince her to turn around and go back many times, but Hermione proved to be very stubborn.
"It's haunted!" Sirius finally exclaimed, making her turn around and look at him with an amused smile on her face.
"Right. Haunted. Sure," she said, trying to keep herself from grinning.
"No, really, very nasty, terrible ghost that lives there, you don't wanna – " James began before a shocked Remus cut him off.
"You know, don't you?" he asked rather loudly.
Hermione finally smiled and nodded before continuing on.
"You know!" Remus said as he followed after her, "How did you – what the – how the – "
"Yes, I know, and yes, I'm fine with it," Hermione said, smiling up at him before continuing down the tunnel and leaving them blinking after her.
"This woman," James said in exasperation, walking with Remus before he was left in the dark. He gave a yelp when something brushed past his leg, making him see the outline of a dog with a rat on his head and frowning after them as Remus sighed and shook his head.
"So you knew this entire time and didn't feel like sharing?" Remus asked Hermione once they'd made it into the Shrieking Shack, frowning at her as Sirius wagged his tail and gave a happy little bark, nudging Hermione's hand with his nose.
"It's not as if I ever had a chance to say – 'oh, hey, I know you're a werewolf and I'm fine with it,'" Hermione snorted.
"Hermione," James cut in, arching an eyebrow at her, "What're we doing here?"
"Well, school is about to start up soon, and you can't stay in the Gryffindor dorms," she stated, going up a few rickety steps, "Mainly because there's not enough room. So we're going to redo this place and make it decent."
"But what about - ?" Remus began, eyeing the scratched and torn room they were currently in.
"That, we'll discuss on a later date with Professor McGonagall," she said with a soft smile before nodding them up to get them to work.
Once they were done, it was night and they were exhausted, laying on different pieces of furniture and admiring their good work. The four boys each had their own rooms and got to decorate them to their liking, Hermione working on the living room, dining room and kitchen once she'd expanded the space on the inside to make everything fit. When she was done with that, she even went back down into the basement and got rid of the torn bed, nightstand, chair, basically everything that was down there and put in another couch and a few chairs, as well as a fireplace.
"We'll hook it up to a restricted Floo system later on this week," Hermione stated once Remus had poked his head in to ask her something and seen what she'd done with the room.
Remus looked at her curiously before going with whatever would give him the simplest answer, "Restricted?"
"Well, only a few people can come in, and we can also limit your exposure to the outside world," she stated before frowning, "Sadly enough, many people will be bothering the lot of you for quite some time. You'll have to let us cool it down before you four leave Hogwarts. Hogsmeade is fine though, we've had agreements from everyone that it is off-limits there."
"Thank you," Remus stated, making her blink a little. "Thank you for doing all of this for us."
She smiled back, "Don't worry about it."
And they'd gotten right back to work without another word.
Now, however, they were tired and Hermione debated on whether or not to sleep on their couch, rather than make the trek up to the castle alone, in the dark.
"I'm starving," Sirius announced suddenly, frowning at the ceiling.
Hermione chuckled and sat up, "I can imagine so. We missed lunch."
"We missed lunch?" Sirius asked rather loudly, his friends laughing at him as he gaped at her.
"Merlin, he's just like Ron," a new voice said with a sigh, making them look and smile at Ginny and Luna, who held a few paper bags of food.
"We didn't know what you wanted, so we just got whatever seemed like a good idea," Luna said, offering a paper bag to James and accepting his thanks with a smile.
"Of course, we know Hermione's favorite," Ginny grinned, swinging a bag a little and smirking at her friend.
"You're too good to me," she smiled back, taking it from her and hopping up on the counter as she reached in and got a burger and fries, biting in and glaring at Ginny as she looked smugly at her. "What?" she asked once she swallowed.
"I also got another favorite," she sing-songed, holding up a white container and making Hermione's eyes widen. "Now the question is whether I saved any for you or not."
"Please!" Hermione said, hopping down and chasing after the redhead as she cackled and ran around the house, "Ginny, you know I love those!"
"You know I do too!" she called as the others watched in amusement.
"Are they always like this?" Peter asked, making Remus shrug and Luna nod.
"Oof!" Ginny cried, making them lean to look into a library to see that Hermione was sitting on Ginny's back and happily opening up the container before her face fell.
"Aww!" she cried, frowning down at Ginny as she chuckled.
"Hermione!" Luna said, holding up another box. Hermione lit up again and bounced over to her, taking it from her and opening it up before grabbing a plastic fork and abandoning her burger for a moment and digging in.
"Mmn," she hummed through the mouthful of lava cake. "Luna, you're brilliant."
Luna gave a slight bow before taking a bite out of the other end of Hermione's burger, Ginny taking a few fries from her and eating them as well.
"Well, we know her one and only weakness," Sirius grinned at her.
"I have a few, actually," she smiled back, "You'll probably learn them all eventually."
"And do you always act like that when they're in reach?" James asked with a chuckle.
"Why do you think they limit me?" she grinned back.
"You should share," Ginny told her, making her look at her dully.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't complain when you ate my fries," she said.
"Luna ate part of your burger!" Ginny cried.
"Luna took a bite out of it, and she gave me my cake, unlike somebody," she looked at her pointedly before Ginny groaned and huffed.
"G'night, Hermione," James said quietly, patting her hair and settling a blanket over her before flicking the lights out with his wand as Sirius cleaned up the mess in the kitchen with his, Remus coming up from the basement and Peter coming in from looking at the exterior and comparing it to the interior.
"Night boys," she muttered, making them blink before smiling back at her and going in their new rooms. She brought the blanket up to her chin and sighed, curling in a little bit more to the pillow and wondering which of the Marauders would sit on her by accident in the morning. With a small grin at that, she fell asleep.
Remus woke up with a lurch and was already out into the living room before he even knew what was going on, wand out and ready for another fight with Donovin or whoever. He was surprised, however, when he saw that there was no danger, and only Hermione sitting up on the couch with her hands covering her face, whispering something to herself.
He lowered his wand and glanced at his friends' doors. They'd taken to putting on silencing charms whenever they'd learned them in school to keep plans for pranks from their goody-goody dorm mate until he moved to Durmstrang in their third year. Remus had dropped them, but the other three still kept them from force of habit. And he guessed that, tonight, he was glad that they hadn't heard the scream and panicked just like he had.
"Hermione?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper as he walked closer to her. He saw her head jerk up and her voice catch before he sat down next to her legs and cast a small glow with the tip of his wand. She was pale and shaking, her hair sticking to her face from sweat or tears. She was looking at him with wide eyes, still breathing heavily from whatever night terror she'd had.
"Remus," she breathed before wincing a little, "You heard."
"What happened?" he asked, not even going to ask if she was alright or not, as it would only give her an opportunity to lie and say that she was fine.
"It – was – her," she said breathlessly, "She was – she was back and she – and she tortured me again and I couldn't do anything to stop her and I was…." She lowered her head onto her knees and took shaky breaths, Remus soon realizing that she was crying. Now, he'd never dealt with a crying girl before, and this was quite a new experience for him.
"Hermione, it was just a dream," he said, attempting for a soothing tone of voice as he awkwardly patted her hair.
"It felt too real," she murmured, shaking her head. Remus thought for a moment before reaching and grabbing her shoulders, making her lift her head to look him in the eye.
"Hermione, she is dead," he said slowly, "She can't harm you. And if she tried, we would certainly stand in her way."
She nodded slowly, the corner of her lips twitching whenever he gave a soft smile.
That morning, James found them asleep on the couch, Hermione with her feet curled up onto the couch and her head resting on Remus's shoulder, his head tilted onto hers. That morning, James quickly backed into his own room and told Sirius and Peter to sleep in as well.
Ugh, I'm sleepy. And, for some reason, have been having recurring dreams involving a certain shop that lets you serve your own frozen yogurt for the past few nights. The last one was weird, as my friend Jenna told me "hey Emilee let's go to Goody's [the name of the shop]" and so we got in her car, which in reality does only have three doors, but it was yellow with black trim and the doors opened up instead of opening out and the inside was like the freaking Batmobile and I literally woke up and questioned my sanity.
I don't even know, guys.