Chapter Thirty-five: And No Flash Photography!
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.
-Theseus, A Midsummer Nights' Dream
There were a few things that Hermione knew as absolute truths in regards to the tableau in front of her.
One: Whatever resulted from this ridiculous mock-duel was going to be messy, possibly dangerous—and completely hilarious.
Two: Sirius Black looked fantastic at battle-stance, a challenging grin on his face, with his wand holding his opponent at bay.
Three: She didn't care what she had to do to preserve this memory firmly in her head for all time, but Hermione did not intend to ever forget this moment, for as long as she lived.
Her first conclusion led her to hurriedly begin packing up her things in order to stuff them behind the couch and hope that she wouldn't regret her decision not to charm them imperturbable. The second conclusion made the action of packing her things away incredibly difficult, due to her level of distraction. Hermione's third conclusion had her deciding fiercely that she'd actually go as far as threatening to hex Professor Dumbledore if he ever told her she had to remove her memories of the past for any reason.
When she finally managed to move her books to a safe place, Hermione found that the boys' audience had expanded, likely due to word of mouth to any Gryffindors that had been in their dormitories rather than the common room. Peter was in the process of moving the small table out of the way, and the semi-circle of students watching the proceedings had left the 'dueling' Marauders plenty of space to square off. Hermione caught Sirius' eye for a quick moment, and he winked at her.
"If you think I'm going to kiss the victor—whichever one it turns out to be—you're both crazy," she informed the two opponents tartly, watching Sirius' face fall at her clarification.
"You've been reading too many medieval romance novels," Remus observed in a dry whisper.
"Exactly how do you know what's in a medieval romance novel?" Hermione asked him with a penetrating look. Lupin flushed for a long minute, and though she knew it was more likely that he'd read medieval history, it was still fun to tease him about it anyway.
"Touché."
Her future professor inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the point.
"Well, James—shall we?" Sirius asked in a relaxed tone that was made even more amusing by the fact that his body was tensed and prepared for a fight.
"Don't mind if I do," James said nonchalantly, lifting his wand in the customary salute.
The bright colored flashes of light that denoted successful spellcasting made everyone in the room blink rapidly or shield their eyes—and when they could all see properly again, what was in front of them made every last one of them roar with laughter.
Sirius Black was in the process of growing long, thick black hair from every inch of his skin at an alarmingly fast rate, but the truly amusing sight was James Potter, whose pride and joy (his hair) was laying perfectly coiffured in a bouffant style—but instead of it being his customary black, the color was now bright pink. Hermione was laughing so hard she could barely stand up—she'd never have thought Sirius would have gone for such subtlety, especially given what the other boy had chosen to cast on him. James loved his hair, for all that it was usually in constant disarray.
Sirius very much resembled his animagus form by now, having fallen to the floor in a fit of laughter at James' appearance. What made the scene even more amusing was the fact that Potter couldn't even see what had been done to him.
"Well! Can't teach an old dog new tricks, I guess." James leaned over and patted Sirius' head, cleverly playing on their secret's double meaning. "Yours didn't work!" he crowed.
"I think you need a mirror, James," Peter managed to say through his peals of laughter. Remus cast a spell Hermione couldn't hear, and suddenly part of the wall turned reflective, showing James his new hairdo in all of its glory.
"SIRIUS, YOU BASTARD!" James screeched, staring at his image in the conjured mirror. Hermione was so caught up in the throes of hysterical laughter that she didn't hear what Harry's father cast next, but the result was that Sirius' new shaggy hair had turned various colors of the rainbow.
"You still look worse than me!" Sirius' voice was muffled by the purple locks that surrounded his mouth, as well as his barking laughter. "Let me see here…"
Whatever Sirius cast on James caused his victim to sprout a full handlebar mustache (pink, of course), the length of which could have been entered into the Muggle Guinness Book of World Records. The air was filled with mostly incoherent giggling, and just as James lifted his own wand to enact his revenge, the portrait hole opened behind them.
"JAMES POTTER what in MERLIN'S NAME are you DOING!"
Seeing Lily Evans in high dudgeon was truly a sight to behold. Hermione realized that from her friend's perspective, James' hair was simply a different color—but Sirius was a rainbow splattered, twisted version of Bigfoot. Potter turned to face his girlfriend slowly, clearly trying to ignore the image of a multicolored Sirius rolling on the floor in hysterics as well as the host of onlookers clutching at each other and the furniture in their attempts to stay upright while laughing.
"Lily, I can explain," he started—but the movement of his mouth made the long tails of his oversized pink mustache flutter and dance at his sides. Both Hermione and Sirius were curled up in the fetal position in their separate locations, shaking with laughter, and she saw Peter on the couch with Remus, the former with a pillow over his face trying to calm down, the latter wiping tears from his cheeks from the force of his guffaws.
The fact that Lily managed to keep a straight face for the first few minutes told Hermione a lot about the other woman's character.
"I—" the Head Girl began, looking from the rainbow mass of fur that was Sirius to her fluorescent pink-haired boyfriend. "I don't want to know," she finally said, conjuring up a purple velvet top hat and handing it soberly to James before shaking her head in disbelief and walking up the stairs to the girl's dormitories.
James stared at the hat, then at his girlfriend's retreating form on the stairs, and turned to Sirius.
"I think you won."
oOoOoOoOo
Once the two boys had been restored to their normal selves, and the Gryffindor onlookers had calmed down and returned to their previous activities, their core group of friends each headed off in different directions. It was as if they'd all simultaneously decided that it would be best for everyone if each calmed down separately, considering that any time any one of them made eye contact, the whole lot collapsed into helpless laughter.
Hermione looked askance at her homework and packed it back up. There was no way she could focus on anything with the images of the past hour still cavorting around in her brain. She decided what she needed most was a walk, curfew rules notwithstanding. Hermione had barely gotten ten feet from the portrait of the Fat Lady, however, before she heard Sirius' voice from the alcove she remembered so fondly.
"So, how about my reward?"
He was standing with his back against the wall, the light of the moon slanted to illuminate the stone floor at his feet. She couldn't see his face, but the tone of his voice was enough to send her senses reeling. Hermione had a wild urge to walk up to him and offer herself as a willing sacrifice to whatever he wanted her to do…Ruthlessly suppressing that sexy thought, she drew on the confidence she felt from the knowledge that he wanted to kiss her, and spoke.
"We didn't agree on a reward," Hermione said in a low voice. She crossed the space between them slowly, drawn to the shadows where she could see the faint glitter of his eyes. When she stepped into the moonlight, he shifted forward, pulling her into his arms for a kiss. Her arms snuck up around his neck of their own accord, even as her mind struggled to remember that there was something important she was supposed to be saying, here. She'd just about forgotten it when his lips started to trail kisses along her neck to her hair.
"Sirius!" Hermione protested, her voice holding none of the indignation she'd intended. "I said I wasn't going to kiss the winner!" Not that I'm going to stop, or anything, she thought to herself as she ran her hands through his silky hair. It's just the principle of the thing.
"You just said you wouldn't kiss me—not that you wouldn't kiss back," he said with infuriating logic.
"I didn't say 'I won't initiate a kiss,' I said—" she protested, the ability to think clearly fleeing from her as his hot breath caressed her ear. She opened her mouth to continue their argument, but as usual, Sirius cut straight to the point. He pulled away to look down into her eyes, the strength of his emotions showing in them to such a degree that her heart caught in her throat.
"You think too much." He spoke the words softly, almost as an endearment, his head dipping down to brush tiny kisses along her lips. The heat from his breath and her knowledge of his intent stirred up brushfires along where his hands touched her body.
I love you, Sirius, she said with her eyes as he looked into them before his intense gaze fell to back her lips, lingering there. I love you, Sirius, she said with her hands as she traced a gentle line from the nape of his neck along his cheek, pulling him to her. I love you, Sirius, she said with her kiss, throwing all of her heart into the intense battle of their lips.
I love you, Sirius, Hermione said, in every way she could allow herself, every way that spoke without words.
oOoOoOoOo
Throughout that week, any reference to autographs, mustaches, or fur sent all six of them into peals of uncontrollable laughter, something that managed to lose Gryffindor a total of 15 House points, and garner James a rather nasty detention with Professor McGonagall. They all agreed it was worth it, however.
On Friday, Hermione was going through her schedule and noticed that the following Monday was their monthly Herbology lesson. It dawned on her that she's already been in 1977 for a month, and she tried to remember what she was doing a month before this, besides being humiliated in front of a host of First Years.
"She looks perplexed," Peter remarked to James, who was seated beside him.
"She does, indeed—I wonder what about," James answered lazily. "Think she'd be distracted if I flicked a grape at her?"
"Don't even think about it," Hermione said without looking up.
"I'd say that's a yes,'" Peter observed.
"Peter?" Hermione looked at the sandy-haired boy across the table from her, feeling a nasty chill when she had the fleeting thought that he wasn't all that good at looking innocent. She shoved the thought aside, but not before reminding herself that she'd made a promise in her diary to include him more, to actively treat him with kindness. Now wasn't exactly the time for the latter, however. "Do you think you'd look good in a handlebar mustache? Orange, perhaps?" she asked, idly.
Remus choked on his pumpkin juice at the same time as Sirius began to laugh—an action that quickly turned into a hacking cough when she glanced in his direction.
"Not particularly," Peter said rather bravely. She nodded at him with a flicker of approval in her eyes before looking back at the paper in front of her.
"If you change your mind, let me know."
"So—wonder what we'll be doing in Herbology on Monday," Lily said in a blatant attempt to change the subject.
"NOT falling off of brooms in front of snickering First Years," Hermione said firmly.
"You didn't fall off of your broom!" Sirius protested. She looked at him steadily.
"You said you couldn't see me," Hermione scolded. She permitted herself a slight smile as Sirius' ears began to turn red.
"Well, I tried," Lily said, shrugging. Hermione reached under the table to squeeze Sirius' hand in reassurance, and he wrapped his larger one around hers. They held hands as the conversation turned to other things, though Hermione was still thinking about what changes had happened to her over a short month. Suddenly, she had a thought, and spoke without thinking about what her inquiry might sound like to the people at the table with her.
"Say—when's the next full moon?"
Sirius released her hand in shock at the same time Hermione realized what a question like that would mean to the Marauders. Everyone looked uncomfortable, and Hermione dared not look at Remus, not wanting him to think she had any suspicions, especially since she couldn't possibly explain them in a public setting like a lunch table.
"Why do you ask?" James said, finally. There was an undercurrent of protectiveness so close to the surface that she wanted to run around the table and hug him for caring so deeply.
"Oh," Hermione picked the first lie she thought of and hoped it sounded realistic. "There are some plants that are particularly valuable for medicinal purposes, that are only capable of being harvested under the full moon—I thought it might be likely that we'd have a lesson involving something like that, if it happens to fall on Monday."
"It doesn't." Remus' voice was short, his tone almost harsh. Hermione felt completely terrible for putting him through such a conversation—especially because she cared so much for him, and not at all about the fact that he was a werewolf. She shook her head, plastering a bright smile on her face that she knew wasn't convincing at all, and excused herself from the table.
Hermione barely made it out of the Great Hall before bursting into bitter tears, weeping for a man she knew didn't deserve what fate had done to him, and hating herself for reminding him of it so carelessly.
oOoOoOoOo
Remus' emotions were a raw mixture of confusion and despair. It was indeed drawing near to the full moon; today he'd been able to capture small hints of strong emotion from the people closest to him—and therein lay his confusion.
The second Hermione (he'd allowed his mind to refer to her as her true name, even though he kept telling himself it was dangerous—he could slip up and use it) had asked her question about the moon, he could almost taste the horror, the dismay she'd felt. That it had been overlain almost immediately by a deep concern and protectiveness from all of his other friends didn't make her reaction any less puzzling. It didn't make any sense; the reaction was as baffling as the strong sense of caring he caught from her in regards to himself. The feelings were so familiar, so similar to Lily's or even Peter's, that he had often thought he'd been confusing her scent with one of the others'.
The truth of the matter was, he was completely certain that she'd left the table almost in tears.
As the rest of his friends discussed her hasty departure in low, worried tones, Remus lapsed into a reflective state, thinking about all the emotions and reactions he'd seen from Hermione, all of the subtle hints in her letter. A strange conclusion started to bubble up in his mind, and the more he tried to ignore it as unlikely, the more plausible it seemed. Her reaction about her parents, her sudden appearance in the magical world—the extent given to her education (Time Turners weren't an item easily trifled with by fully grown wizards, he knew), all of those things seemed to lead directly to his odd idea.
Remus became convinced that a member of Hermione's family had been bitten by a werewolf. It seemed like the ultimate irony—a family so wholly against magic to suddenly be thrust into the thick of it, and in that sort of way. The strong emotions he sensed from her, not the least of which was a periodic pity—the Headmaster must have told her about him.
Strangely, he didn't feel betrayed. He recognized Hermione as a trustworthy person—after all, she hadn't dropped a word to him, not even while explaining her strange circumstances albeit cryptically in their letters—and he knew he wasn't the only one to see her in that light. The whole thing made sense to him; the pieces all seemed to fit together.He resolved to find a time when he could sit down with Hermione and talk with her about what he'd discovered. She would likely be surprised, probably frightened, but he knew it was the right thing to do.
Lupin looked up at the High Table at Professor Dumbledore, grateful that the old man had meddled slightly, but not enough to force the decision he'd just made. Albus Dumbledore was truly the best man he knew