Time Interned
Chapter 21: A Kind Suggestion

Mione rounded the corner and pulled herself to a stop in the entrance hall. She wanted to put her best face forward; running full blast, gasping for air, wearing a worried expression and other peoples' clothes was not her best face. She caught her breath and walked calmly, though purposefully, toward the Great Hall. She paused to calm her nerves and arrange her face to look anything but anxious before she entered through the open door. The Gryffindor table was to her right. She looked along the length of it from entrance to high table. There was no one there. Nor was there anyone at the other three tables. However, the smell of eggs and sausage filled her nose. They had come, eaten and left while she put on her best face.

She wondered where they would be by now.

"Miss Garnier," the warm and worry-free voice of Professor Dumbledore spoke to her. "Your friends are in the hospital wing. They had a rough night, as I understand it."

"Oh, thank you, Professor." She turned to leave, but he placed a gentle and firm hand on her shoulder.

"I believe Madam Pomfrey would be quite angry with me if I let you disturb her patients," Dumbledore said apologetically. "I'm afraid you and I will both have to wait to speak to them."

"You want to speak to them, too?"

"Indeed, I do," he nodded solemnly, and suddenly looked up, his face concerned. "I nearly forgot something terribly important I meant to say."

"Professor?"

"Happy Christmas," he said with a small smile.

It was Christmas Day. In the excitement of the previous night she had lost track of the date. There were no gifts at the end of her temporary bed, but she had not been anticipating any. She was shocked at herself for thinking first of gifts when her friends were in hospital, far from their families on Christmas. They had rushed back from London to help Remus and protect her, and she was concerned about not getting any presents? Hermione was growing to dislike her French counterpart; she was frivolous and shallow.

"Professor, when will I be able to see them?" she asked.

"Not for some time, I suspect. Two days, at least." His blue eyes twinkled with hidden meaning.

Two days. Not until the full moon ended. She always had a feeling that the Headmaster knew more about the goings-on at Hogwarts than he let on, and she fought a blush that threatened to consume her face wondering if he knew what Remus had been up to last night before the moon rose.

"I was considering your situation, Miss Garnier," Dumbledore said after a pause during which he had taken a strange interest in the pattern of the wood grain on the bench, allowing Mione time to regain her composure. "It seems you have been making quite an impression on young Mr Lupin."

"I hadn't meant to."

"No, but these things cannot be helped," Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "However, a little distance might be wise."

Mione blanched. She had considered her proximity to the Marauders a potential danger, but to have the Headmaster tell her to stop being their friend meant she had grown closer than even she realised. How many tiny yet vital events in their lives had she disrupted with her selfish friendship?

"As pleasant as it is having you here with us, you must go back home," Dumbledore smiled. "Surely, Mr Lupin's behaviour toward you has shown you how dangerous your situation is."

"About that," she swallowed hard. "The werewolf seemed particularly intent on reaching me. He broke the window to the Hufflepuff dorm."

"I believe you are the first person Mr Lupin has ever seen when he is transformed. As such, he is quite intent on capturing you."

"There's something else," she admitted in a small voice, terrified of his reaction and what it might mean. "Last month, I cut myself in the Shrieking Shack."

Dumbledore paused, his expression heavy. "Then it is worse than I thought."

"How much worse?" She looked at him, her hazel eyes pleading.

The twinkle faded completely from his eye as he spoke, "Consider a starving man presented with a single kernel of corn. Would that kernel satisfy him or serve only to increase his awareness of his hunger?"

Mione's knees fell from under her and she dropped heavily onto a bench. Dumbledore sat beside her, speaking low, "In his entire life, he has yet to satisfy his taste for human blood. Your blood has shown the werewolf what he is missing."

"What will happen when I return home?"

He considered the question. What would twenty years of unfulfilled desire do to the werewolf? What distances would he cross to slake his thirst with her blood? "That is a mystery even to me. I would think the taste would fade over time, but if left unsatisfied it may grow with the years and distance; much like love."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, but his eyes were twinkling again. He really did think all would be well. She wanted to believe him, but he had put a new fear into her. What if the bloodlust did not fade in the twenty years between now and her time? What would that mean for his tenure as her DADA teacher? Would the werewolf know her smell when they met the night of Pettigrew's escape? Had she changed her own history and his future with an accidental cut to her arm?

The old wizard easily interpreted the expressions as they passed over her face. Legilimency was nothing compared to a lifetime of interaction with people. He knew people's thoughts by the slightest frown. "Do not worry yourself over questions that cannot be answered," he advised her. "Instead, look to your research. You are quite close to a solution for your problem, I understand."

"Nearly, Professor, but I need access to the Restricted Section before I can start experimenting."

"I thought that you might. Go to the library and you will find Madam Pince most helpful in assisting you in the Restricted Section," Dumbledore smiled serenely.

"Thank you, Professor."

"And consider my suggestion. Your absence will be hard on dear Mr Lupin if you continue to stay so close to him while you are with us." He stood and walked from the Great Hall leaving Mione alone to consider his words.

He was right. She had only gotten close to Remus as a means to reach the invisibility cloak, which she no longer needed. Her research was yielding greater results than she had anticipated, and she would probably find a way to repair the Time-Turner before the end of term. She would not have to break into the Ministry to steal a Time-Turner; she would not need the invisibility cloak. That still left her with three boys, maybe four, she would be pained to part with. She had not expected them to grow so attached to her, nor she to them.

She had to step away, but how could she do that without an explanation? She could not just stop being their friend. Perhaps she could manufacture a reason. In her experience with Ron and Harry, there were often times when they did or said things that upset her enough that she stopped talking to them for quite some time. Remus's behaviour toward her could easily be used as a reason. Generally speaking, girls don't take kindly to being assaulted by their male friends. Although, Mione had been a little frightened by the unnatural forwardness, she had quite enjoyed his actions, but he did not know that. If his face that morning had been any indication, he feared her reaction as much as he did the coming of the full moon.

Her heart clenched to think that she would use his illness as a reason to stay away from him. He had clearly been under the influence of the full moon when he pulled her into that classroom to demonstrate his fondness for her. He was persecuted as it was, to tell him that she refused to be his friend or girlfriend because of his condition would be inexcusable.

No, she thought. I'll find another way.

She barely touched her breakfast before going to the library. It was Christmas Day, but she knew Madam Pince would be there with her treasured volumes. The woman glared at the sixth year as she pulled out several books from the Restricted Section. She read in the library for hours, noting the shuffle of the woman's feet as she passed by periodically to make sure Mione wasn't doing anything to her books.

Mione continued to read, finding in the first book a detailed account of one wizard's attempt to crystallise time using a spell. It was completed and published by his assistant after the wizard blew himself up on his fourth attempt. Mione saw the spell used was the one she had read about in one of the other books, and made a side note that the spell was volatile beside her initial notes. She read through the book, closed it and set it aside.

"Most people treat Christmas as a holiday, you know," Remus muttered.

Hermione nearly screamed. She hadn't heard him walk up or pull out a chair or sit down. Yet there he was, sitting across the table from her, leaning back in the chair, his feet propped on the seat beside her, holding a book lazily in his long fingers. It was one of her books and he didn't seem to like it very much.

"Remus! I thought– Shouldn't you be in hospital?" she asked, trying to sound annoyed, but she was still breathless from his sudden appearance.

"The others are in far worse shape," he shrugged. "Madam Pomfrey just told me to sleep it off."

"Right…" she said quietly.

"I came to apologise."

She paused. This could be it. The excuse she needed to stop talking to him, to put a solid barrier between them. She looked at him, pale and tired, scars on his arms from where the wolf had torn into him, and she couldn't bring herself to hate him. "It's not your fault. The werewolf—"

"I'm not apologizing for him," Remus interrupted. "I'm no more responsible for his actions than for yours."

"Then what are you apologising for?"

"For being such a coward. I should have told you how I felt, but I was afraid of what you would say. The cat's out of the bag now, though." He raked a hand through his hair, already threaded with grey. "I like you… a lot."

"I had noticed that last night," she said, ducking her head to hide the blush.

"The point is if I'd said something before, maybe I wouldn't have behaved quite so roughly when I went to tell you last night."

Her head snapped up and she looked hard at him. "'Quite so roughly'? As opposed to doing it gently? So you meant to attack me?"

"No, I meant to express my feelings," Remus sighed. "But the full moon acts like alcohol. I lose my inhibitions, forget the consequences and all I can do is what I want to do. And I wanted to kiss you."

"You did a little more than kiss me, Remus," she was fighting anger and hysterics. He had known what he was doing. He meant to do it. He wasn't sorry. If she hadn't already decided against hating him for this, she would have slapped him.

"Yes," he said softly. "I probably would have done even more."

She ducked her head again, her wide eyes staring at her borrowed skirt. She was shocked at how forward he was. This quiet, gentle boy who was too afraid to say that he liked her was all but spelling out how he had planned to have sex with her. The moon must already be pulling on him to have him saying such things. How much must it have been influencing him to make him shirk his Prefect duties and remain at Hogwarts?

"Wait," she said. "The train left for London well before the full moon. There is absolutely no excuse for you staying here to tell me how much you like me. You left your parents to worry!"

"I was thinking of them when I skipped the train," he replied. "Sirius told me I was more of a bastard than usual last month. I didn't think I would be a very good son to make them put up with that at Christmas."

"You make it very hard for me to not like you," she grumbled.

"Good." A grin pulled at his face; it was another one of those looks that belonged on Sirius. Though it wasn't as leering as the one from the previous night, it still made him far too attractive given her intention of distancing herself.

"So!" he sighed. "I see you're not giving up on your plans to go home."

"No. I'm not staying," she said definitely.

"Even after I finally managed to express myself?"

"Especially after that," she replied, trying not to mimic his flirtatious tone. "I can't get attached to anyone."

"Doesn't mean we can't get attached to you."

"You shouldn't. It's dangerous."

"I don't know if you noticed," he said, smiling, "but I am dangerous. You think a little more danger scares me?"

"This is a different kind of danger."

"It doesn't frighten me."

"It would if you understood," she assured him. "You're very smart and you more than anyone, besides Dumbledore, would appreciate how important it is for me to leave."

"Well in that case, I don't want to understand if it means letting you go," he shrugged. "Instead, let's pretend I'm an idiot and go have dinner."

"Remus," she chided, not able to keep the playfulness from her voice.

"Nope, I'm a dolt," he insisted. "I wouldn't understand what Morgan Hornbuckle's experiment was about if she hopped into my lap and explained it to me in very small words." He tossed Madam Hornbuckle's book aside and stood. "Dinner."

A/N: I do love a Cheeky!Remus