A/N: Happy Saturday, readers! Thanks to everybody who reviewed, alerted and favourited last chapter-I was quite surprised by the positive response! Last chapter got my highest review count yet! I hope you all enjoy this one just as much! Also, do any of you guys have a tumblr? Because I'll happily check out anybody who does~ Here we go!

Frenchies Just Don't Understand.

Hermione sat in the Quidditch stands beside Remus who had Peter to his right and watched as James filtered through the Gryffindor try-outs like an absolute pro; Sirius hovering on his broom by James' side. Watching James and seeing the real passion he had for Quidditch Hermione was reminded of one Oliver Wood who had lived and breathed the game during his years at Hogwarts as the Gryffindor Team Captain and Keeper. They were both practically manic.

"IF YOU CAN'T EVEN FUCKING FLY A BROOM STRAIGHT THEN GET OFF MY GODDAMNED PITCH!"

"So, James is pretty passionate, huh?" Hermione murmured quietly to Remus, who snickered back.

"Passionate is putting it lightly. He's bloody nutters for Quidditch."

"Too right," Added Peter with a laugh, smiling at his friends fondly. "It's the 'best thing in life' other than Lily Evans, or so he says."

"I see." Hermione replied as James hurled a beater's bat at Sirius' turned head.

"PAY ATTENTION, DAMMIT!"

"Wow. And here I thought Oliver Wood had it bad."

"Oliver Wood?" Peter piped up and Hermione flushed in embarrassment.

'Oh no!'

"Uhm, Oliver Wood was a Quidditch fanatic that I went to school with a couple of years ago." Hermione replied awkwardly, looking away. 'A Quidditch fanatic who's probably in nappies right now.' "He and James probably would've gotten along quite famously. I remember him yelling to my friend Harry who played Seeker on his team once that he had to 'get the snitch or die trying'." Hermione quoted and laughed lightly at the memory, smiling at Remus. "He lived and breathed the game."

Remus laughed as well, his amber eyes glinting in amusement. "That sounds very much like a James kind of attitude, where do these Quidditch nuts come from?"

"Quidditch isn't as big in France, then?"

"Oh, by no means. I didn't really know much about the game until I came here to Hogwarts and was practically overwhelmed with the Quidditch fever. I mean, yeah, there's a French League and the Quiberon Quafflepunchers pretty much always win it, but it's definitely not as popular."

"I DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE SEXY SIRIUS IF YOU WANT A SPOT ON THIS TEAM YOU HAVE TO WORK YOUR SEXY ARSE OFF FOR IT! NO EXCUSES!"

The trio all stared at James and Sirius after hearing James yell. The three looked at each other for a moment before erupting into peals of laughter, Remus actually having to wipe his eyes. "Poor Sirius," the werewolf laughed. "he always gets the brunt of James' Quidditch love. That's what teaches him though for playing on the team."

Hermione grinned. "That why you don't play? To avoid James?"

Remus smiled weakly. "Something like that... And Pete here can barely fly to save his own arse."

"Hey!" Peter protested and Remus laughed again.

"You know," Hermione mused as she watched Dorcas Meadowes on a broom throw a spectacular pass to James who then sent the quaffle through the hoops, "I'm surprised to see that Dorcas Meadowes plays Quidditch. I didn't really expect it from her."

"Yeah, she doesn't look like she's the type does she?" Replied Remus with a sunny smile. "But she's played Chaser alongside James for the Gryffindor Team since third year after Hugh Williamson graduated."

"So who was on the team last year?"

Remus squinted for a moment before raising his hand to point out figures. "Okay, so James has been on the team since his second year; He plays Chaser." Hermione nodded, knowing this already and Remus continued. "Padfoot joined the team in our third year and he plays Beater and I already mentioned Dorcas. Erm, Lorcan Towler has played for the past two years as Seeker, but he's in his seventh year now so James is probably keeping an eye out for a new Seeker for next season. So right now we need a new Beater to partner Sirius as Freddy McDougal graduated last year, a new Chaser to replace Andy MacFarlan and someone to replace Marley Campbell who played Keeper and was the Captain for the past couple of years."

"I see. Do you know Quidditch well enough to work out who James is gonna pick for the team? How about you, Peter? Any ideas?" Hermione asked curiously, watching James test the potential Keepers.

Remus and Peter both grinned at each other before speaking in unison. "No idea. You?"

"None." Hermione grinned and then the three Gryffindors watched the rest of the try-outs lazily, leaning back against the stands and exchanging more stories, jokes and laughter as their fellow Gryffindor Quidditch team hopefuls zoomed in the air above them on their brooms. Soon enough the evening set in and James wrapped up the trials with the announcement of his new team for the season, thanking the spectators for watching and not annoying him too much. The Gryffindors all then eventually found their own ways back to the castle for food, unwanted homework and bed, many (though James was certainly the loudest and with the most excitement) chattering about the good chances of Gryffindor finally beating out the incredible Ravenclaw team and taking the Cup that year.

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"So how did the Wolfsbane Potion work out for Remus?" Hermione sat in her familiar chair in Dumbledore's office the day after Remus' transformation for the month.

Hermione had found herself in Dumbledore's office after the first trial of Wolfsbane the month before and Dumbledore had informed her that everything had worked perfectly. Upon being told that Remus was just fine Hermione had promptly cried her eyes out for a further fifteen minutes afterward; glad that she had been able to assist Remus and Dumbledore in some way as she was practically useless in researching for anything concerning Voldemort at that particular point in time. Dumbledore had informed her that he too had been too busy dealing with the growing number of Death Eater attacks on the magic and muggle community to research more about Voldemort's history, much to his annoyance. But now here Hermione was for trial number two and Dumbledore looked just as pleased as he had the previous month.

"Yes, everything worked perfectly, Hermione. Remus is currently sleeping in his bed in the Hospital Wing. Poppy said that Mr. Lupin is quite fine as a whole and that he'll more than likely be able to attend class on Monday. In all, another very successful venture for us."

Hermione released a shaky breath of relief. "Oh, that's wonderful news, Professor. Did you get to talk to him?"

Dumbledore smiled. "I'm afraid not unfortunately. I popped in to check on him earlier this morning and he was resting. I would suggest if you wish to visit him you could do so this afternoon."

Hermione smiled and nodded. "I'll probably head over before I have Defence." Hermione's expression then turned serious. "I read in the Prophet about the recent Death Eater attack on the Robards family. Is Gawain the only survivor?"

Dumbledore bowed his head. "Indeed he is, Hermione."

Hermione clenched her fists and bit her lip. "And how are you going about getting more recruitments for the Order? Do you think it's time I start implementing the D.A?"

"The D.A?" Dumbledore asked curiously, leaning forward.

Hermione grinned. "When we were in our fifth year at Hogwarts Professor just after Voldemort's rebirth you were forced to hire one Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister of Magic Dolores Umbridge by the Ministry as our new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor." Hermione swallowed thickly, tears of hatred burning in her eyes.

Dumbledore watched Hermione's in vain attempt to regain control of her emotions and he kindly ignored the traitorous tears that slipped down her cheeks. "Sir, if there is a person I hate more in the world other than Voldemort it's Dolores Umbridge. No words can describe my hatred for that woman." Dumbledore was silent when Hermione spoke again. While Hermione had given Dumbledore all the information she knew about Voldemort, the Order and the horcruxes themselves, she hadn't really told him about her rather unforgettable Hogwarts years. "While she was our teacher at Hogwarts she refused to teach us any practical spells, sticking entirely to theory with the belief that if you knew the theory behind the spell you should be able to practice and perform it without a problem."

Dumbledore frowned. "Now that's not true. One must be able to practice a spell in order to perfect it."

Hermione nodded fervently. "I agree completely, Professor, books alone can't help you and I've always been known as the Gryffindor Bookworm! You must practice the spells in order to get them to work! She was absolutely ridiculous! But yes, whenever any of us would speak out against Umbridge we would be silenced and punished. ...Umbridge's most favourite form of torture being blood quills."

Dumbledore's face paled considerably. "Blood quills? She tortured my students?" Dumbledore's face was dark and Hermione couldn't help but shiver at the magic that simmered in the air in the result of Dumbledore's anger; it was simply electric.

"Before I died Harry still had 'I must not tell lies' permanently carved into the back of his hand." Hermione swallowed. "But yes, it wasn't long after this that Umbridge was given power to supersede you Professor as the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. You see, this was a time where nobody believed that Voldemort had returned and they believed Harry was...not of sound mind and you as well for believing him. The public was very anti-Potter and anti-Dumbledore and there was a lot of criticism in the Daily Prophet, many of the reporters questioning your mental state and whether or not you should be in charge of Hogwarts at all." Hermione took a breath. "It was quite a stressful time for both yourself and Harry, Professor. But back to Umbridge, she was tasked to evaluate all of your staff and fire those she deemed inappropriate. Umbridge also banned all forms of clubs and it was then in retaliation that Harry, Ron and I created a practical study group to practice Defence. We called it the D.A for short, but it was really called Dumbledore's Army." Hermione's smile was genuine at the look of shock, embarrassment and pride all in one on her Headmaster's face.

"Dumbledore's Army?" He repeated after a moment with a small smile. "I must admit I haven't been so flattered in a long time, Hermione." Hermione's smile quickly turned into a grin at Dumbledore's slightly flushed face. "But please," Dumbledore leaned forward, "tell me more about your fifth year."

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Hermione looked up from her Charms homework later that afternoon when Sirius climbed through the Fat Lady's portrait, the dark haired Marauder grinning at Hermione when she waved him over. "I heard that Remus was sick and that he went to the Hospital Wing." She lied with a frown. "How is he? Is he alright?"

Sirius smiled fondly at Hermione's rather concerned expression. "Yeah, he's alright love; I think he just ate something that didn't agree with him. Madame Pomfrey said it's more like a twenty-four hour bug kind of thing."

Hermione sighed aloud. "Oh, really? That's wonderful! Well, it's not wonderful that he's ill but I'm glad he's going to be alright!" Hermione then closed her textbook with a loud snap. "Do you think he'd be up for some visitors? I don't want to bother him if he's too tired or anything."

Sirius smiled. "I'm actually just going upstairs to grab some Honeydukes chocolate for him before heading down to the Hospital Wing for a visit. You want to join me?"

"Please?"

"Go and put your rubbish upstairs and I'll meet you back down here in a couple of minutes." Hermione was instantly on her feet and with her arms laden with books she dashed up the stairs, leaving an amused Sirius to go to his own dorm and grab the chocolate he'd promised his Honeydukes-deprived friend. By the time Sirius had found Remus' not-so secret stash (which was in his underwear draw, much to Sirius' amusement) Hermione was downstairs and waiting.

"So what have you been up to today, Hermione?" Sirius asked as he held the portrait open for Hermione to step through, the brunette taking his offered hand and thanking him as he assisted her through the hole. "I haven't seen you at all today."

"Well I slept in a little after last night's Astronomy lesson and when I woke up this morning I went up to meet with Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?" Sirius echoed in surprise, looking down at the shorter girl. "You see him at least once a week."

Hermione smiled weakly. "Yes, I rather enjoy talking to him about things."

"Things you can't really discuss with James and me I'm guessing?" Hermione instantly turned her gaze to Sirius' face. The handsome Gryffindor was smiling at Hermione's wide eyes. "Hey, I'm not stupid, Hermione. I'm sure there are plenty of things you just don't want to talk about to people like me."

Hermione bit her bottom lip. "I-It's not that I don't want to, it's just-"

"We're too young." Sirius' smile was understanding. "We haven't really lived."

"Sirius..."

"We wouldn't really understand, right?"

Hermione sighed quietly and gripped the Gryffindor's arm to bring him to a stop. "...If anybody would understand me, Sirius, I think it would be you."

'You lost everything once too.'

"What?"

Hermione sighed again, changing the subject. "I don't know if you've seen this morning's Prophet, but another family was slaughtered by Voldemort's Death Eaters last night."

"Yeah, I heard." Sirius replied morosely. "The entire Robards family bar Gawain, right?"

"I don't trust the Prophet but I wanted to hear from a reliable source."

"Are you okay?" Sirius' question startled Hermione and she blinked in surprise. "I know hearing about that would upset you." He then stated awkwardly, averting his gaze from her. His cheeks were pink. "It wouldn't be easy for you hearing about Death Eater attacks."

Hermione avoided looking at Sirius as well and swallowed thickly.

'Oh, Sirius...'

"Y-yeah, it's hard." She choked and she took a sharp intake of breath when Sirius suddenly gripped her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione."

Hermione peered up at Sirius and smiled tearfully, the guilt for lying to him again practically overwhelming her. He was so sweet. "...I-it's not your fault, Sirius."

Sirius surprised her again when he tugged her to his chest, wrapping his free arm around Hermione's shoulder. "I still can't help but feel responsible."

"Please don't," Hermione breathed, her cheeks flushed at their close proximity. Hermione never remembered Harry or Ron comforting her quite like this. "you have nothing to feel sorry about."

"Well I can't help but feel bad knowing you're distressed, Hermione. Friends worry about friends. But to be serious for a moment, if you need to talk to anybody ever, please, don't hesitate to talk to me. My ears will always be open for you." Sirius' smile caused Hermione's breath catch in her throat. ...Was it possible to call a man beautiful?

Burying her thoughts of the young man in front of her, Hermione smiled and gave his fingers a tight squeeze. "Thank you. For caring, I mean."

The two continued to the Hospital Wing in silence after that, both of them not sure what to talk about. Upon arriving into the Wing and finding Remus awake and chatty Sirius and Hermione both forced smiles on their faces and greeted the ailed werewolf with as much cheer as they could muster, Hermione throwing her arms around her friend and hugging him gently, not wanting to jostle his sore enough body.

"I'm glad to see that you're awake, Remus!" She babbled before greeting James and Peter who had sat in armchairs around Remus' bed. "I was so worried!"

"I'm fine, Hermione," the recovering werewolf replied, his eyes dancing in amusement. "It's not like I'm dying or anything."

"Even still!" The brunette stated frankly as she sat on the edge of his bed, careful to avoid any of his limbs. "You're my friend and I can't help but worry."

"I'm fine, Hermione." Remus laughed, before raising his head to grin at Sirius. "You brought me my stash?"

"Of course, Moony my man." Sirius replied cheerfully as he tossed a bar of chocolate in Remus' direction, the werewolf catching it without blinking. Sirius gently nudged Remus' leg into the centre of the bed and took a seat on the mattress behind Hermione, using her shoulder as an armrest, much to her exasperation.

"Thanks mate," Remus grinned as he ripped off the bright packaging and popped a chunk of Honeydukes' finest into his mouth. Remus' eyes quickly closed in delight and the other Marauders snickered.

"Ahh, Moony and your chocolate obsession." James said amusedly. "I'm surprised you're not obese with the amount of stuff you inhale every week."

"Nothing wrong with liking chocolate," Remus replied without skipping a beat and swallowing another bite. "it's better than Quidditch."

Hermione laughed at James' unflattering sputter of horror, though she quickly changed her tune when James began one of his rather long and passionate Quidditch rants; of how Quidditch was his life, that it was in the air he breathed and in his blood. Remus of course being a Frenchie just "didn't understand" the sheer brilliance and beauty of such a magnificent sport and while James went on and on Remus merely raised an eyebrow of amusement in Hermione's direction and she couldn't help but snicker.

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"You're kidding, aren't you?" Hermione sat on James' bed in the boy's dorm the evening Remus was released from the Hospital Wing, peering from James to a much healthier looking Remus, who sat in Sirius' bed across from them in amazement. "The entire third floor!" Hermione couldn't believe the audacity of the two boys who sat before her, both grinning innocently.

Sirius and Peter had gone on an adventure about half an hour earlier to go and raid the kitchens, leaving Hermione, James and Remus in the boys dorm discussing what the Marauders were going to do for Peter's birthday, which was on the 13th of that month.

James laughed. "Yeah, isn't it brilliant! We've never done anything like it! Or quite to that particular scale. ...Though we did turn the Black Lake into its namesake literally back in '74 when we tickled the giant squid hard enough to make it ink itself...and the rest of the lake."

Remus grinned. "Good times, good times. The mermaids down there according to Dumbledore weren't impressed."

"And McGonagall only gave us detention for a month for embarrassing the 'ole Grande, too. Easy pickings." James added with a wide grin directed at Remus.

"And instead of polishing the armour like we were supposed to we just made them fight each other instead when Filch wasn't looking." Remus added, laughing again.

"Good times." Both boys repeated in unison, much to Hermione's amusement.

"So you're really going to turn the third floor completely into cheese."

James and Remus both nodded and there was a certain glint in their eyes. "It will be one of our greatest pranks ever." declared James in a rather dramatic exclamation, puffing his chest in pride and peering down his nose at Hermione. She snickered.

Over the time that Hermione had come to know the Marauders, very much like the Weasley Twins in some respects Hermione's scoldings whenever the quartet did wrong only seemed to spurn more obnoxious actions from the boys, not halt them like she had wanted them to. Hermione's anger and outrage and that of Minevra McGonagall's seemed to be what the group went for; the more shock value the better in the words of James Potter. So Hermione had learned that instead of reacting, it was better for her to just not. Brush it off and let it go. Though if the pranks had a violent component to it the Marauders certainly heard about it. As Hermione had come to discover however the boy's pranks seemed to make Hogwarts a little brighter. The world outside Hogwarts castle seemed to grow grimmer with each passing day. More missing persons were featured in the Prophet, attacks on families and an increase of murders became more common and practically a norm in the daily news, and the school seemed to feel it. Everything was becoming so dark.

In Hermione's third week she had first witnessed one of the Ministry Auror Department's infamous violet letters come to the school.

On what had started as a normal Thursday morning quickly turned dark at breakfast time when a horde of owls carrying violet-coloured envelopes flew into the Great Hall. Hermione remembered the silence that befell the crowd of students and when the owls dropped their missives to their respective recipients, some of the younger students sobbed in disbelief while others were completely stunned into silence. The teachers' expressions were grim and glancing at her fellow Gryffindors, Hermione stared curiously at their pasty faces, wondering what was going on. Seeing her confusion, Lily had then explained who the letters were from and what they usually entailed and Hermione had pushed her breakfast away, unable to eat for the rest of the day. She had waited until late before she visited Dumbledore that evening and he had told her that many of the downed family members of the students that had received the violet letters from the Ministry of Magic were Order members killed in action in an attempt to protect a small muggle village from some of Voldemort's Death Eaters. It had been a particularly bitter pill to swallow and Hermione had cried for a long while after that, feeling immense guilt for not being able to protect anybody and sadness for those students who had lost family members. While there hadn't been any large influxes of violet letters since that Thursday morning (though every odd day there would be one), things were always a little tense around breakfast time in Hogwarts and any little pranks to relieve the stress on the students by the Marauders were good by Hermione's book.

"So who came up with the plan?"

A frown tugged at Remus' lips. "Well it took a lot of planning, didn't it Prongs?"

James nodded solemnly. "We started cooking up the idea a couple of weeks ago when Wormy got a detention for charming McGonagall's hair red and gold." James suddenly sniggered. "Sirius was the one who did it, but you know how it goes."

"Problem was," Remus interrupted, "we quickly ran out of our box of bourbons that Mrs Potter sent in the post, kept falling asleep at random intervals and instead cooked up new ways to torture Snivellus."

"And ultimately, during the whole time Pete was gone we came up with absolutely nothing." James finished, pouting.

Hermione grinned at the crestfallen expressions of the two Marauders, leaning forward eagerly. "So how did you lot come up with the idea if you were stumped?"

"Well actually it was Pete who gave us the idea!" James laughed, lying back on his pillows.

Remus smirked. "If we want to be technical however it was Sirius who came up with the idea, but he was inspired by Pete."

"Believe it or not."

"But yeah, Pete came back from his detention and he brought back some cheese sandwiches with him."

At Hermione's blank expression on seeing Remus and James' amused expressions, Remus smiled. "Whenever any of us has a detention that ends late," he explained, "we always raid the kitchens and grab stuff before coming back to our dorm to discuss our punishments. We've done it for years."

"It's like a tradition, pretty much." James finished. "But yeah, if you've ever noticed Sirius doesn't eat cheese."

"He hates the stuff!" Remus laughed. "Always has. Also turns out he's slightly lactose intolerant. He can only handle so much milk, yoghurt and icecream."

"Really?" Hermione asked in slight surprise.

While she had noted that Sirius never did eat many dairy products, his lactose intolerance was news to her. ...Perhaps his being lactose intolerant was because of his animagus abilities? Hermione had also noticed that James rarely ever ate meat either and had assumed it was because of Prongs, but this was interesting. Did being an animagus affect your dietary needs?

"Yeah, he is." James replied in amusement before continuing, "But anyway. So of course, Peter bringing back cheese sandwiches on a detention night is like a crime against humanity for Sirius and then that's when he came up with the idea."

"'If Wormtail wants cheese than we'll bloody give him cheese. An entire floor of it.'"

Hermione laughed. "...Well, here I thought there was a more impressive story behind that idea of yours."

Remus snickered. "The idea may be brilliant but we never said the story behind it was."

"I can't believe you two...what's McGonagall going to do with you lot?"

James laughed at this. "She's gonna love it. I'm sure the smell of it alone will bring all the mice in Scotland to Hogwarts; so even if she doesn't have cheese she'll be able to snack on them."

"James!"

"She'll love it."

"Two galleons James'll be in detention for three weeks."

"Two." Hermione replied and Remus grinned, shaking Hermione's hand.

"You're on, belle."

James on the other hand tsk'ed disapprovingly. "Merlin, Hermione placing bets on your big brother's punishment? And you too, Remus! Your best friend?" Remus rolled his eyes. "I hate you both."

"Well we love you!"

"You both suck." Despite James' angry tone the grin was wide on his lips.

"Not yours, James." Remus replied in amusement, his smile widening at James' horrified/laughing expression. "I may be French but even I have standards."

"Remus!" gasped Hermione, and Remus raised his eyebrows in question.

"What?"