A/n: Gah. I just don't have the heart (or the stamina) to write an 8,000 word chapter, and so I haven't quite managed to fit all the week of letters' events into this chapter. The good news is that the main reason for this is that I didn't want to cheat you out of some good reading just by skimping on descriptions…
Chapter Twenty-eight: The Map Never Lies, Part Two
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world
possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting
that a new world is born."
-Anais Nin
Hermione was quite surprised when at breakfast on Monday the usual arrival of Post Owls included a small scop owl that landed at her plate and stuck his leg out. She looked around at her companions, but no one seemed unduly interested in her letter, making her wonder who could possibly have sent it. After she had fed the tiny bird with a bit of biscuit from her breakfast, it took off and she unraveled the first roll of the parchment.
Hermione's blood ran cold at seeing her true name.
She lifted her head quickly, eyes narrowing as she scanned first the High Table of faculty, and then, with leaden heart, the occupants of the Slytherin long table. A discreet cough beside her refocused her attention to her Gryffindor companions.
"You should probably read the rest," Remus said to her quietly, a strangely urgent note in his voice. Hermione unwrapped the rest of the curled parchment and understood why he'd been so interested in it when she saw his signature at the bottom. Well, that's a lot better than some other possibilities, she thought to herself, releasing an audible sigh of relief.
"Bad news?" Peter asked solicitously from across the table. She could feel Lupin tensing beside her ever so slightly, the nervous reaction exactly the right way to ease her mind about the letter he'd sent.
"Not at all," Hermione answered Peter, smiling at him in the hopes of reassuring the boy next to her as well.
She left the Great Hall early, wanting a little privacy as she released her anxiety in the only way she knew how. Hermione was glad she'd thought to take her diary with her; usually she left it in her trunk, but for some strange reason she wanted it with her today, as though the secrets she knew were more comforting when she could carry them with her in something more tangible than memories.
Dear Hermione,
I just got a letter from Remus.
It started just like this one, too—'Dear Hermione,'
I can only assume he was smart enough to look
for me on the Marauder's Map as soon as he had a suspicion about my
name.
Is it strange to find so much consolation in
the fact that he was always thoughtful and caring even in school? He
even thought about the fact that I might be uneasy about how he'd
figured it out—he offered to show me the map.
He didn't –call- it the map, of course.
And to top it all, he even offered to talk to
me about it via letters, rather than face to face, in case I would be
more comfortable with that…
If I can manage to control my girlish hormones enough NOT to cry, I think I'll write him a response right now. Shame we can't Apparate on school grounds, the Owlery is SO far from Charms…
oOoOoOoOo
Sirius was finding it hard to concentrate in class.
Not that he didn't have problems normally, but normally the girl in the seat in front of his didn't wear her hair down (which he loved), and then there were the little details that he'd gotten to hold her hand and kiss her over the weekend.
He hoped telepathy worked, because he was sending as strong a message as he could to Professor McGonagall that today was a very bad day to do live transfiguration. Not only would he likely botch any such assignment, but his inattention would probably garner him a detention that would involve cleaning up after his and anyone else's mistakes. Unfortunately, thinking about that just reminded him of what had happened during the last detention he'd had with McGonagall.
"Merlin—even I wasn't this bad last year about Lily," James finally said after Sirius knocked his friend's glasses off with a clumsy wand movement. Sirius brushed his hair from his eyes nervously and looked back at the hasty notes he'd taken about the task for the day.
"I sat with Peter last year—I wouldn't know," he said without looking up, trying to brush off Potter's material point. I didn't appear to have worked, as James had stopped what he was doing entirely and was now just staring at him. "What?" Sirius hissed, his ears turning a little red from discomfort.
"You're in love with her already, aren't you?" James accused, with a tinge of awe in his voice. Sirius' blush traveled quickly across his ears, down his neck, and into his face.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said, carefully stacking the parchment in front of him into a neat pile—upside down.
oOoOoOoOo
Remus' mother periodically sent him letters and packages throughout the year, and so he didn't garner too much attention when he had a visit from a Post Owl during lunch. 'Hermia's' casual conversation hardly paused as he unrolled the scrap of parchment, something that impressed him as well as had him unwillingly wondering if it meant she was used to pretending.
Then he looked closer, and saw that she had been spreading jam onto a piece of toast repeatedly for the past three minutes—and cursed himself for his cynicism.
Halfway through the letter, Remus decided that he should have read it when he was alone. Her statement about secrets particularly resonated with him, and when he read her comments about Sirius, he looked up to see her watching him, a very faint blush coloring her cheeks—behavior he echoed mere moments later when she thanked him for his friendship.
He felt very humbled—he'd basically sent the girl a letter accusing her of lying to himself and his friends, and her response had been to graciously thank him for being a good friend to her. Remus told himself that he was being foolish—he should be pleased that she'd understood his intent, not feeling guilty about the confrontation he deliberately hadn't initiated.
Rather than completing his meal, Remus excused himself and headed to the Owlery. He felt very strongly about what he wanted to say to her in reply—as someone who had to keep a very large aspect of his life a secret, the thought of being able to share that feeling with someone was suddenly very important to him.
He also thought the possibility that she might receive the owl right in the middle of their monthly Care of Magical Creatures class had great potential.
oOoOoOoOo
Hermione had mixed feelings about their Care of Magical Creatures lesson that day, mostly due to the fact that it had been completely fantastic, and something she'd have loved to have attended in her own time. The 'mixed' part came from the fact that she cared a great deal for Hagrid, and always felt slightly guilty when she enjoyed a CoMC class not taught by him.
Professor Kettleburn (about whom Hermione finally understood Dumbledore's explanation of why he'd retired—the man was simply fearless as well as brilliant) had a particular talent for the care of reptiles. In his enchanted courtyard in a remote section of the castle grounds, he'd been carefully cultivating a group of Ashwinders, the firey serpents whose eggs were so prized as potion ingredients. She'd read about them but had never expected to be able to see one.
The students weren't allowed closer than a yard to the magical fire in which the snakes lived, but Professor Kettleburn explained carefully about how their bodies thrived on fire, similar to salamanders but that they reproduced in a very different way. Ashwinder eggs, the professor had explained with a nearly fanatic gleam in his eye, were one of the only offspring in nature that created their own warmth for incubation. Left alone, the eggs spawned their own fires, eventually hatching and expanding the blaze as any creature would do to their habitation. Naturally, this was a problem in areas where the snakes shared their living space with other creatures.
The specimens the Care of Magical Creatures professor was caring for right now had come from near an apartment complex in Surrey—the professor spoke of their appearance there in very severe tones; he was sure they had been left there as a prank. Rather than exterminate them, as their eggs cost quite a lot to obtain and were used in some of the potions that Hogwarts students learned in class, he had decided to cultivate them instead. Hermione and the others in their class watched in awe as Professor Kettleburn tended the fire in which the serpents lived, the heat nearly oppressive from as far away as two yards.
They were still talking about the lesson as the Gryffindor and Slytherin students began the walk back to the main grounds, interrupted only by the arrival of a very harried looking owl with a letter for Hermione.
"You're popular today," Sirius remarked, watching her face as she read the parchment.
"I've probably forgotten someone's birthday," Hermione said glibly, folding the missive carefully and placing it in her bag.
oOoOoOoOo
"I haven't played this in years," Sirius complained loudly, rubbing his hand where it stung from his loss. Peter was exceptionally good at games of luck, and for some reason every time they played Exploding Snap, the card that finally blew up always got him in the same spot.
"Don't be a sore loser," quipped James from his four-poster. He had his legs up against one of the supports as he flipped through the motorcycle parts catalogue his parents had sent he and Sirius.
"'Sore loser', cute," Remus said from his place at the window.
"Don't encourage him, please," Sirius said, groaning as the boy across from him began to deal again. "Besides, it's hard to be anything but a loser against this one." He jutted the thumb that wasn't throbbing at Peter, who just grinned.
They all jumped in surprise a few minutes later from a loud noise coming from the window—causing Sirius to lose his concentration and forget to drop the card that was about to explode.
"What in the bloody hell was that!" he said, more upset at the fresh pain than whatever the noise had been.
"Owl," Remus said sheepishly, releasing the window to swing out the pane of glass and let the bird in.
"You've been getting an awful lot of those," Sirius said in a more moderate voice as he dolefully dealt out a new game for he and Peter.
"He's gotten more than two in a week before," Pettigrew said reasonably.
"No talking privileges until you lose a game," Sirius teased, not quite joking. He wondered what was in the letter that had Remus looking serious one minute and laughing the next.
oOoOoOoOo
Hermione was a little disappointed. She'd sent the last message to Remus not long after supper that night, and breakfast had come and gone with no response. She told herself she was being a little silly—after all, not even twelve hours had passed since she'd sent the owl, and she wasn't the only one who cared about classwork. It would be more prudent, she told herself firmly, to be concerned about what he was asking her in the letters, rather than worrying about when she got the next one. It was difficult to think that way, though—this was Remus, after all.
Even so, she refused to look at him all throughout Potions, half punishing him for withholding a response, half worried about what she might see from his face—what if he hadn't responded yet because he was talking things over with Sirius?
By the end of lunch, she'd run out of creative ways to scan the windows for approaching owls. In frustration, she decided that the best way to distract herself would be to go back over the effects of the potion they'd learned earlier that morning in class. Hermione pulled her Potions textbook from her bag, a thickly folded piece of paper falling to her lap as she did so.
A sinking suspicion struck her upon seeing it, and she looked up just in time to see Remus' lips twitching slightly.
oOoOoOoOo
Only the knowledge of what it would do to everyone's future had stopped Hermione from trying to hex Remus Lupin with something really painful—and permanent. She was still fuming as she walked across the grounds, intending to settle under her favorite tree for a while and calm down. After she'd finally found the letter he'd hidden in her textbook, she'd dashed off a quick response—but hadn't been able to give it to him before their DADA class had started.
Thinking herself clever, she'd levitated it to his desk when Professor Sapiens' back was turned—not that it had stopped the action from being detected by the clever professor. Thankfully she hadn't read the letter; instead she'd suggested Hermione play guinea pig for the effects of a hallucinogenic curse useful against banshees. The images the curse induced were completely horrific—but thankfully not of the same type as a Boggart's. Hermione knew exactly what she'd see should she be forced to face her worst fears, and since Boggarts turned themselves into one's worst fears, the result was always viewable to anyone nearby. The implications of that were too horrible to think about.
"Lovers quarrel?" asked sarcastic voice from above her. Hermione almost wanted to scream. The last thing she needed right now was to deal with a snarky Severus Snape.
"Not at all, actually," Hermione replied with a forced smile. "Everything is just splendid."
"I'm sorry to hear it," Snape responded in a dissatisfied tone, choosing to lean against his tree rather than sit beneath it. The disparity in their positions made her feel like his subordinate, a feeling she resented. There would be enough of that in the future.
"That's a singularly ungracious point of view," she pointed out, knowing why he held the opinion he did, but choosing to goad him out of spite.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Severus said coldly, seeming to take delight in his next statement. "Your boyfriend and his little band of troublemakers have only themselves to blame for their reputation."
Hermione couldn't suppress the flush of pleasure she got from hearing Sirius termed as her boyfriend, and the mere impulse to conceal that reaction from Snape caused her to get even angrier with him.
"I had thought better of you," she said, finally rising to her feet in order to place herself on physically equal footing with him. "I had—" she sighed, "have respect for your ability to be yourself in any situation." She paused, noting that he seemed to be completely confused as to where she was going with this. "Yet, you allow yourself to get all worked up at the thought of someone else's happiness."
"I am not 'worked up,'" Snape snapped. Hermione raised an eyebrow, and he flushed slightly. "—and I have no desire or need for your respect." Despite the fact that she'd once again scored a hit on him in their unacknowledged battle of wits, he held himself straight and proud as he spoke the last.
"That's why I respect you," Hermione said, leaving him to contemplate that statement. She'd come out to 'her' tree to calm down, and ended up leaving more agitated than when she'd arrived—but she felt a lot better.
oOoOoOoOo
"You have got to be kidding, Moony," James said in exasperation, looking at his contrite friend and trying his best to stay stern. "You know the house elves are going to be in there any minute to straighten the room—and any contraband they find gets sent straight to Dumbledore!"
"It isn't as if I intended it to fall from my bag," Lupin lied, easily. The altered Sneakoscope was one of James' planned pranks for Halloween; there was a complete set of them, one each for all of the students and faculty that Prongs disliked. The one he'd set on the bottom shelf of a bookcase in Potions class would squeal uncontrollably whenever Filch came near it. He hoped that James would order him to go retrieve it, figuring that his friend would send him with the Map (thus enabling him to show Hermia without having to explain anything to his friends) and perhaps the Cloak as well, if he'd forgiven him for lending it to Hermia yet. Sure enough, he had judged James' reaction pretty well.
"You've got to go get it, Remus—the one for Filch took the most time!" All four boys shuddered as they each recalled exactly how James and Sirius had figured out how to attune the Sneakoscopes—they'd needed a piece of hair from each of their 'victims.' Filch's had been particularly difficult to obtain.
"We've still got a full month before—"
"Don't forget 'Prior Incantato,'" Sirius interrupted Peter in an urgent voice. Remus knew what his friend was thinking—all someone had to do would be to cast a spell on the item that revealed the last enchantment cast on it, and they were likely to be exposed as the culprits.
"That only works on wands," Remus assured them. He looked around at his four friends. "You want me to go get it, then?" They nodded, all moving back from their huddled position on the couch when they saw the portrait hole open to admit Hermia James.
oOoOoOoOo
"Good evening," Hermione said, dropping herself gratefully into her customary armchair with a sigh of relief.
"Long day?" Sirius asked in a voice that had his friends shooting knowing glances at each other. She nodded.
"Apart from having to be the one chosen to demonstrate just how horrible a certain curse is in Defence class—"
"That did look nasty, from your reaction," James cut in.
"I don't want to think about it," she asserted. "I managed to run into Severus Snape just a bit ago, he seems convinced that I'm some sort of scarlet woman and calls you my boyfriend." Hermione nodded to Sirius as she finished speaking. She'd brought it up in this way because she dearly wished to know his opinion, but knew that if she asked him as if it came from herself, he'd have the upper hand. She kind of liked it when he was on the defensive, anyway—he was almost cute.
"That sounds about right," Sirius said, clearly meaning the 'boyfriend' section. It was plain to everyone within earshot that he'd forgotten any other part of the conversation as soon as Hermione had referred to him as her boyfriend.
"Uhh, Sirius?" Peter leaned over and put an arm around his friend in grand camaraderie fashion. "I think you skipped about half of what she said."
Until Pettigrew had pointed it out, Hermione had also forgotten she'd referred to herself as a 'scarlet woman'—she was just as preoccupied as Sirius by the latter half of her statement. Still, since it was a chance for her to heckle him a little bit, she sat up stiff as a board and fixed Sirius with a glare that would have melted stone.
"What I said sounded right to you?" she asked, adopting her best Minerva McGonagall impression. Sirius gulped nervously, oblivious to the snickers of the three other boys. Hermione was disappointed that Lily wasn't present for this—it truly was classic—but her friend had another Head Girl meeting.
"I do not think you're a scarlet woman," Sirius asserted, his face flaming and his voice firm.
"I'm glad to hear it," Hermione said, relenting slightly. "And?"
"And what?" Sirius said, eyeing her warily, as if worried he'd missed another implied insult in her original story.
"Am I your girlfriend?"
It was taking all of her willpower not to burst into hysterical laughter at the discomfort she was inflicting on Sirius. Clearly he wanted to say yes—and she wanted him to say it, too—but he also didn't want to get hexed into the next century if he misjudged her in any way.
"Well! Look at the time!" James stood up and began to gather his things, speaking in a falsely excited voice. "I think I have business in the library—what about you, Wormtail?" Peter looked at James gratefully and nodded; the two boys exited the common room as if they were being chased by Dementors. Sirius turned to Remus.
"I wouldn't miss this for the world," Lupin said, resting his feet casually on the coffee table between the couch and the armchair Hermione was perched on. He gestured to them lazily, as though their little drama was entirely for his benefit. "Do go on."
