Time Interned
Chapter 29: V For Victory

"Thank you," Hermione sighed and sank to the floor, tears of relief spilling from her eyes.

Weakened as he was, Remus felt compelled to comfort her. He slid down from the bed and wrapped his bony arms around her. They had talked and flirted, and in his moon intoxication, he had kissed her and touched her intimately, but he had never just held her. This comforting embrace was the closest thing to a hug they had ever shared.

He expected her to push him away; she had turned her back on him for over a month, refused to speak to him and acknowledged him only when she was forced to see how devastated he had become. He was certain such close contact would be abhorrent to her.

He moved to break the contact. If he were the one to do it, it might not hurt so much, but, surprisingly, she pulled him close and buried her face in his baggy jumper.

"If I'd known you would react like this, I would have listened to your explanation last time," he laughed.

She hugged him tighter in response, her arms wrapped all the way around his chest; he was so thin her fingertips almost brushed her shoulders. She held him to comfort him for her unforgivable behaviour. She held him to comfort him for the loss he had yet to suffer. She held him to comfort herself for almost losing him.

"As much as I hate the idea of you letting go," Remus whispered some time later, "I think we might consider going down to dinner."

"Will you eat?" she asked, her words muffled in his clothes.

"I will if you will."

"Okay."

"Okay," he said. "You might have to help me get there."

He felt pathetic having to lean on her for support, but it meant he could hold her close for the wonderfully long walk back to the Great Hall. He blessed the moving staircases, which were being fantastically stubborn that evening and refused to stop on their landings. As they waited, Hermione wrapped her arms around him to keep him standing upright. He buried his face in her bushy hair and luxuriated in the soft curls.

"I like your hair better this way," he commented.

"My hair?" She touched her hand to it. "My hair! Oh no!"

She broke her hold on him and waved her wand around her head. The bushiness of her hair diminished until it lay flat and turned a strawberry blond. Her eyes lightened in a way that looked like someone was pouring milk into a strong cup of tea. When she was done, Remus found he didn't like it. Mione was stiff and false where Hermione was soft and natural. He wanted to change her back, but she would never have agreed.

Still, he got to have her arms wrapped around him.

The staircase arrived at their landing and they walked carefully down to the next floor, around the corner, down the corridor, down another two staircases and, finally, through the entrance hall to the Great Hall. The whole trip took three times longer than normal because Remus had to stop and take a rest every so often. Even after eating lunch and snacking on grapes, he still grew tired after only a few steps. He was quite annoyed at how weak he had gotten.

"I think you won," Mione commented, the hint of French accent back in her voice.

He looked and saw the Gryffindor table alive with victory. Party poppers exploded with streamers in every direction. James was riding high on the shoulders of his teammates and enjoying every second of it. Remus wondered if Harry would have acted that way. He wanted to ask her, but Sirius yelled for him.

"Moony! You're still alive!" He jogged out to meet them, as eager to share the good news as to assess his friend's state. "I gave up waiting after the first two hours."

"There was a lot to talk about," Remus said. A Ravenclaw ran past the open door with a plate overburdened with food and Remus was lost in the aromas. He stared over his friend's shoulder at the crowded Gryffindor table. "I'm hungry."

"It's about fucking time!" Sirius proclaimed. He hoisted Remus into his arm and carried him into the Great Hall. Mione stood back and watched him fill his plate before she went to the Hufflepuff table.

Fully engrossed in his attempts to sample a full helping of everything on the table, Remus didn't notice that Mione was not there. He tore into a jacket potato, eating two before he looked up to see his friend staring at him in amazement.

"I'm very annoyed with you," Remus informed him.

Sirius blinked back his astonishment that Remus was capable of eating so much in one sitting. "Me? What'd I do?"

"Look at me!" Remus pulled at the excess fabric of his jumper. It had fit snugly at the end of December. "I'm a stick! I blame you for this."

"What?" Sirius threw a jacket potato at him and was pleased to see him catch it in his hands and throw it onto his overflowing plate.

"So what did you talk about?" Sirius asked.

"Her."

The Animagus made a face implying his dislike of the girl. "What about her?"

"We got it wrong. She's not going back, she's going forward," Remus said between bites of steak. "And it's not bollocks; it really is dangerous for her to stay here."

The fact that Mione was from the future registered in Sirius's brain, but he was more interested in the way his emaciated friend agreed so readily to Mione having to go. He put his down his knife and fork, and looked across the table. "So after one afternoon of talking you're okay with her leaving you?"

Remus paused mid-bite and thought about it as he slowly chewed and swallowed. "No, but I understand."

"She's going forward? How far?"

Remus used his fingers to gesture twenty; his mouth was full and he also didn't want to announce it to the world.

Sirius didn't have that concern. He nearly shouted, "Years?"

Remus nodded, still chewing. He was irritated to find that even his jaw muscles were weak; chewing was difficult and took nearly all his focus.

"Fuck, you'll be an old man by then," Sirius whistled low at the prospect. "A dirty old man, apparently."

"Shut up."

"What did he say this time?" James dropped into his seat next to Sirius and elbowed him for whatever he said to offend Moony. He was breathless from laughing, and still lightheaded from the bouncing he'd gotten on the shoulders of his teammates. "What?"

Remus was staring at him, trying to imagine what Harry, his son, would sound like. He was quite clearly a different person. James was all boasting and strutting. Harry looked far more modest, though he did have plenty more to crow about if Hermione's reaction to him was any indication. What would the boy be like if James and Lily didn't die?

"Do I have something on my face?" James asked.

"Sorry, just something Mione said," Remus ducked his head and shovelled in some veg. If he kept his mouth full, they would not be able to get answers from him.

"Shit! You're eating!" James pointed. "It is a glorious day for Gryffindor."

"Git." Remus muttered through his veg.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, young man," Sirius scolded.

Remus just grinned at him, sunken cheeks rounded out like a squirrel storing away nuts. He kept his face full the whole dinner, eating far more than seemed possible or healthy given his month of eating nothing at all. As the Gryffindors started singing their way back to the tower, Remus followed them to the entrance hall and turned the opposite way.

"Moony, where are you going?" James called. "Victory celebration in the common room!"

"I'm heading to hospital wing," Remus replied. "Maybe Madam Pomfrey has something to fix me."

"She's just a nurse, Moony, not a miracle worker," Sirius patted his shoulder consolingly. "Come on, I'll walk you."

Remus shrugged his hand away. "It's alright. I'll take myself," he said and walked away under his own unsteady power. Sirius watched him go, impressed that he was able to support the weight of all the food he had eaten when that morning he couldn't even hold himself up. Amazing what a single girl could do to a bloke. He grinned and followed the victory cheers up to the Gryffindor dormitory.

The party lasted into the morning, with Peter and James making two runs to the kitchen under the invisibility cloak to keep the revellers well supplied. Close to midnight, after the younger Gryffindors had worn themselves out and gone to bed, a number of the seventh years and of-age sixth years stole up to their warded trunks and came back with bottles of Firewhiskey, Ogden's was most prevalent, and shared their wealth among those still standing regardless of their age.

Saturday morning in the Gryffindor tower was not a pleasant one.

Remus returned from hospital after breakfast. The smell of alcohol and sick was overpowering and threatened to turn his recently-filled stomach. He held his nose as he passed each washroom on the way up to his bedroom, but the sound of retching was still sickening.

Sirius was sleeping sideways on his bed, his head and feet hanging off of either side, sticking out from under the scarlet curtains. James hadn't even made it to his bed; he was asleep on the rug under the window. The Prefect shook his head. It was no wonder Evans didn't look twice at him. James would have to change drastically for the girl to consider becoming a Potter. Lily Potter. The idea still seemed absurd to him.

"Why you lookin' at me like that?" James squinted at him, his glasses on upside down.

"You ever think that what Evans says about you is true?" Remus asked.

"Wha?" James screwed up his face in concentration.

Remus shrugged. It was probably pointless to bring it up while he was still inebriated, but continued, "Maybe if you listened to what she said, changed what she didn't like, she'd go out with you."

"Yer lucky yer a skeleton, mate," James said as he rose on wobbly, whiskey-soaked legs. He meant to sound threatening, but failed utterly.

Remus ignored his unsuccessful attempt at intimidation and started undressing. He pulled off his robes and jumper. The button-down shirt beneath was tight on his arms and back. His chest, scarred from the werewolf's attacks, was no longer withered and sunken.

"Wait," James said and poked him in the chest with an uncertain finger. He had been able to see the boy's ribs and sternum just yesterday, but now it was all muscle. "When did that happen? How the hell long have I been out?"

"Madam Pomfrey really is a miracle worker," Sirius muttered, still hanging upside down on his bed. "You weren't that healthy before Christmas."

"Wha'd she give you?" James asked.

"Don't know, but it works quickly," Remus commented with a shrug, enjoying the ability to move his shoulders without using all his energy.

James flexed his considerably smaller biceps. "Think it would work on me?"

"Doubtful."

"Git."

"You're drunk, so I'll ignore you," Remus patted him on the head and ruffled his uncharacteristically smooth hair. "I need a bath. I'm heading to the Prefect washroom. Try not to throw up on my bed."

"Git!" Sirius called after him.

"Git's right," James staggered to his bed. "Tellin' me Evans won't date me if I don't change. What's wrong wi' the way I am?"

Sirius, still viewing the world turned on its axis, looked at him, "Well, she thinks you're arrogant," James snorted, "a show off," James scoffed, "a bully," James shrugged, "and a toe-rag."

"So what if I'm proud of what I can do?" he grumbled. "I deserve some credit."

"You go about like you deserve credit for breathin', mate," he said and waggled an admonishing finger at him. "So what if you can wipe your own arse, it's nothing to go braggin' about."

"You're drunk," James folded his arms and turned away from him, the sudden motion making his head swim.

Sirius laughed drunkenly. "So're you. You think we'd be talkin' about this if we were sober?"

James jumped up, but fell immediately back to the bed when his head spun and his stomach turned. "I don't go around tellin' everybody to like me…"

"You tell Evans to," Sirius said and rolled out of bed to sit on the floor. He thought it the best place to keep himself until he was sober enough to not fall off of it. "You show off how quick you are every chance you get."

"I'm practicing," James said flatly, though he wasn't fooling anyone.

"You're a git and a show off."

"And you're lucky I'm drunk and that my parents like you."

Sirius grinned. "Everybody's parents like me."

"Now who's the braggart?"

"Ain't about me," Sirius said. "It's about you and Evans."

"And why bring it up now? You'd think he'd be on about Mione, not me and Evans."

He shrugged. "He's got his girl. Wants to see you with yours."

"Maybe," James said doubtfully. "What'd they do yesterday anyway?"

"Talked," Sirius made a disapproving face.

"About what?"

He waved his hands in the air like the dippy Divination teacher, Madam Coultard, when she talked referenced the mystic unknown, "About her secrets. She's from the future—twenty years."

James's intoxicated mind ground to a stop. "Twenty years? She'd be old enough to know our kids."

Sirius caught his drift. "Bringing up you and Evans after talking to future girl…"

"You think I actually get the girl?" James's hazel eyes went wide. "Lily Potter. There's a thought."

The boy sitting on the floor snorted, "If you make yourself less of an arse."

"Impossible," Remus said as he came into their room and conversation. "James is an arse by nature."

"Do I get Evans?" James jumped up. He ignored the vertigo and grabbed Remus's biceps, gripping them until it hurt. "That's why you said it! She told you! I get the girl."

"Not at the rate you're going," Remus shook his head. "I saw a picture of your kid–"

"We have a kid?"

"He's–"

"We have a boy?"

"—nothing like you."

"What?" James said, disappointed. "He doesn't look like me?"

"Looks just like you, but he's nothing like you. He's modest, James," Remus said. He didn't say any more. Hermione had not given him permission to even say that much to him, but, if the future was to move along as planned, James would have to change. She said that something happened before the start of their seventh year to make him less obnoxious; maybe this was it.

"So he took after Evans," James shrugged.

"He won't take after anyone if he's never born, which is exactly what's going to happen if you don't stop being such a fucking prat," Remus informed him harshly.

"He's right, you know," Sirius said from his seat on the floor.

"Shut up, the pair of you!"

"Make us," Remus crossed his arms over his chest.

Yesterday James could have knocked his friend over with a well-aimed pillow, but Remus was rebuilt now. He looked as strong as Sirius, which meant he could wipe the floor with the scrawny Chaser. His arms were larger around than James's legs. It was a completely unfair fight and they both knew it. James grabbed his dressing gown and left for the washroom.

"Where you goin'?" Sirius called.

"Gotta make myself presentable for Evans," he muttered, defeated. "Can't go down to say 'good morning' smelling like a drunkard, now can I?"


A/N: Have I mentioned how much I love the Marauders and their potential for banter. I love their banter. One upon a time I hated to write dialogue... then I started writing the Marauders!