A/N: Lemme just put this here... Quick reminder that this Wednesday's update is on time, but starting next week updates are on Tuesdays :)


That full moon, Moony was impatient. He kept raising his head at every odd sound, not warily but rather almost as though he was awaiting something to happen. About an hour after the moon rose, something apparently did.

The werewolf started running into the depths of the forest near the Potter Mansion. The stag and dog that accompanied him exchanged worried looks but followed him nonetheless, a rat resting on the stag's head. After about ten minutes of running, they paused at the sight that was revealed to them.

A pitch-black wolf was looking at their grey friend cautiously. It shifted its eyes to look at the uninvited guests before turning back to Moony.

The werewolf slowly approached the foreign wolf, and the Animagi tensed. But the black wolf seemed not to attack or run away, but rather cower away from Moony, as if it expected to be attacked by him. Moony reached the black wolf and slowly, carefully, licked its nose.

The Marauders were so shocked they barely noticed the way the black wolf's mood seemed to lighten up as the two wolves ran in a circle before stopping to look at them.

The black wolf looked at them with worry, but Moony licked its ear in encouragement. It neared them, first going towards Padfoot, the biggest threat of the trio. They turned in a circle, observing each other, before the dog let out a happy bark. Padfoot approved.

The black wolf then looked at the stag and rat before turning back to the other canines.

'Really?' it seemed to ask and Moony did the wolf equivalent of shrugging.

The wolf returned it by the same coin before jumping back on him and playfully but carefully wrestling with him.

As Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs looked at them, they could have sworn those two were long-lost friends.


The next morning, Remus woke up bandaged and sore at James' room at Potter Mansion. He vaguely remembered waking up earlier in the forest and watching someone being carried away, but ruled it out as only being his imagination.

At least, he did so until Sirius jumped at him.

"It looks like Moony was extra-friendly last night," the dog Animagus smiled.

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

"Last night, at the forest, Moony started running," James said with a wolfish smile.

"You didn't hurt anybody," Peter chimed in. "But you did meet a very lovely friend."

"Another wolf," James clarified.

"Pitch black and beautiful," Sirius commented. "I didn't know you were such a heart-breaker that your wolf gets bitches."

"There was another wolf?" Remus asked, ignoring his friend's comment.

"You bet it," James said. "At a certain point we just left you two alone." He winked. "To get more… acquainted."

The three Animagi burst into laughter and Remus couldn't help but smile.

"There was another wolf?" he asked again.

"How many times do we have to say it?" Sirius asked. "Yes, there was another wolf."

"She came," Remus mumbled, drifting back to sleep and leaving his friends confused and curious. "She came."


The next few months went by very quickly.

Remus and Emerald had made an agreement upon never, ever, going through a full moon when they're mad at somebody – especially each other.

"We only hurt each other," Emerald said, and Remus was so glad he had received her forgiveness he couldn't do anything but nod in agreement.

The Marauders, however curious they were about the black wolf, didn't ask their werewolf friend any questions, thinking that he would tell them when he would be ready.

They didn't care that much for Emerald, though, and questioned her about her relationship with their professor and her presence at the Order meeting for weeks before she threatened that one more word about it would force her to tell on them sneaking into the meeting.

Hermione, in the meanwhile, spent most of her free time in the library, further researching time travel. What with all of the stress over her lycanthropy, meeting people who were dead and trying to find her place at a time when she wasn't even born yet, she hadn't made and proper research on the subject.

It was around the end of January when she found a book in the restricted section that explained more than all of the other books combined. This information can change everything, she realized.

Or, rather, won't change anything. As that was what the book said. Small events could be meddled with, but any big event is a fixed point in time and she couldn't change it even if she wanted to.

She can't stop people from dying. The only reason she had information that could prevent their deaths was that they died. Therefore, if she prevented their deaths, she would never know they died and couldn't prevent their deaths.

All of the major events – the Potters' deaths, Sirius' imprisonment, Pettigrew's betrayal and Voldemort's second rising – were fixed points that led to the situation that sent her back in time, and therefore were crucial for the current situation to exist. She couldn't change it, because then she wouldn't be able to change it.

The bottom line was that there was nothing she could do about anything. Well, almost nothing. And so she started planning.

Things seemed to be going smoothly and uninterrupted, until the day before Remus' seventeenth birthday.

It was the first day of the two werewolves back at the school after the last full moon, and they decided not to sit in the library but go outside and enjoy the few warm days at the beginning of March. Therefore, when the three other Marauders searched their regular corner and didn't find them there, they looked for them at the map.

Sirius was, to say the least, furious.

"You lying, manipulative, bitch!" he screamed once he reached the spot where she sat next to his best friend near the lake, James and Peter following close behind.

"Sirius, what happened?" Remus asked, while Emerald was too shocked to speak.

"This!" Sirius called, waving the Marauder's Map in the air. "This is what happened. We were looking for the two of you and what did we find? Little Miss Liar here, lied about her name!"

"Sirius, please," James said. "Let her explain herself. There might be a –"

"A reasonable explanation?" Sirius asked. "All right. Let's hear it out. See?" he asked when Emerald didn't seem able to form words. "There is no explanation."

"Sirius," Remus said warningly.

"No!" Sirius said. "She lied to us! For all we know, she could be working for You-Know-Who."

"She isn't," Remus insisted.

"How can you tell?" Sirius said. "All she ever did was lie! You don't even know her real name!"

"Hermione Granger."

Sirius paused at his spot, looking at his friend with astonishment. "What?"

"Hermione Granger," Remus repeated. "That's her name. That's what you saw on the map."

"How did you know?" Peter asked, shocked.

"Because I saw it, too," he explained. "First weekend of the school year. But, unlike you dolt, instead of running around and screaming at her, I actually –"

A branch fell from a tree nearby, and Emerald's hand flew to her mouth as she regained her ability to speak.

"In case you have forgotten," she somehow managed to say, "there was a fair amount of screaming involved when you found out, as well." She looked at the branch that fell dangerously near Peter's head. "Sorry," she mumbled at his direction.

"It's okay?" he asked, rather than said.

"You've been keeping it from us?" James called out, suddenly angry as well. "Why?"

"Because she's entitled to have her secrets," Remus said, echoing the words she told him just a couple of months ago. "Just as we have our own."

"It's not the same thing," Sirius said.

"It's exactly the same thing," Emerald replied. "There's more to it than you even know."

"That's exactly what's scaring me here!" he called out. "I have no idea who you are, what side you're at, anything! So let me tell you this." He neared her until he was dangerously close. "If I find out you're working for You-Know-Who…"

"And you just disappear every month," Peter said.

"I'm visiting my sister," she said.

"You've never told us your sister's name," James added.

"Luna," Remus said at the same time Emerald called, "Ginny."

"Are you seriously trying to help her?" Sirius asked Remus in disbelief.

"I have a cousin who works at St. Mango's and he said there is nobody with the last name 'Grey' there," Peter added.

"You're supposed to be smart!" Emerald yelled, causing a couple of more branches to fall by their side as her magic lost control. "Remus always says the best things about you but you're terrible!"

"We're not the ones who lied, Hermione."

A splash of water came out of the lake and fell on the five of them as Emerald fell to the ground and covered her head with her hands.

Sirius died nearly three years ago. How can he still be here to call her 'Hermione'?

"Pretty Thing. Beautiful. Mudblood. Filth. Mine. Grey. Emerald."

Remus sighed as he crouched down next to her.

"It's okay," he whispered in her ear. "It's okay. You're safe now."

"What is she mumbling?" James asked, suddenly worried, and Emerald raised her head to look at him.

"You are a bunch of insolent children," she whispered poisonously. "You think you know everything, but you don't. Not even close." She turned her head and looked at Sirius. "I owe you nothing. The sooner you get that, the better."

"Emerald…" Remus whispered.

"Get your friends in check, Remus," Hermione said. "I care about you, but my past is none of their business," she finished before walking away.

She didn't want the castle. She didn't want the memories it held and, for the first time, she didn't want Gideon. So instead, she walked to the hut at the forest edge and knocked on the door.

"Hello, Hagrid," she greeted weakly when he opened the door. "Mind if I come in?"


As soon as Emerald disappeared from sight, Remus jumped on Sirius.

"What in Merlin's name were you thinking?" he called.

"I was thinking that she was lying to us," Sirius replied, just as angry.

"You could have talked about it!" Remus told him. "You could have nicely asked! You could have gone to Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey or even Hagrid – each of them would have told you!"

"Told us what?" Sirius asked. "Because so far, all I've seen is a pissed off witch with very unstable magic that had lied to us and kept secrets from us. And you've been helping her!"

"You don't understand!" Remus called.

"Because she won't tell us anything!" James replied.

"Not that!" Remus said. "About me! You don't understand me!"

That caused all three Marauders to pause. "What?" Peter asked, confused.

"You do your best to help me," Remus whispered. "You're there with me most moons, and you're supporting me but in the end, when my body is tearing itself to pieces, I'm alone. I was alone."

Realization came across Sirius' face, causing him to fall to the ground and hide his face in shame. "No," he whispered.

"That full moon in September was her first moon," Remus said. "She's lost, and scared, and traumatized…"

"Her magic is highly unstable," James said. "I've seen it a couple of times with old friends of my dad's… People who were held prisoners for days by dark wizards."

"A werewolf pack," Remus whispered. "One month. And she was Crucio'd for hours right before."

"Wha- What did they do to her?" Peter asked.

"I didn't ask," Remus admitted. "And even if I did, I don't think she'd tell."


"I don't know what to do!" Hermione wept into a handkerchief the size of her robe. "I'm just trying to move on, to build myself again, but every time I think like I'm getting there, something bad happens!"

"T's okay," Hagrid said, trying to rub circles on her back but rather rubbing circles at all of her backside. "Things'll get better eventually. They always do, ye'll see."

"When?" Hermione asked. "I've been here for six months and that ache in my heart still feels like it's a day old."

"Cause that's what happens," Hagrid said. "Losing people the way ye did… t's hard. And t's goin' ter get a lot worse before it'll get better, but it will."

"I can't do it anymore," Hermione whispered. "I can't let things get better only to run away crying every three months."

"Then don't run cryin' ev'ry three months," Hagrid said logically.

"You make it sound so easy," she said, half a smile on her face as she accepted the tea she was offered, wisely turning back the rock-hard cookies.

"T's easy if ye make it easy," the half-giant replied. "Don't let them get ter ye."

She sat there in silence, slowly drinking her tea as she merely enjoyed the comfort of the familiarity she was receiving.

"Your name is cleared," she said right before she headed outside.

"What?" Hagrid asked, confused.

"In my time," she explained, "your name is cleared from opening the chamber of secrets. I know telling you about your own future is probably not a good thing, but I thought you ought to know. Give you something to wait for."

"Thanks," he said, amazed.

"I should head back to the castle," she said. "Thank you for the tea and company."

"Any time, Emerald," Hagrid said warmly, closing the door and sitting down. "Ye stupid Marauders, when I see ye again…"