Time Interned
Chapter 38: Dead Men Writing

Mione didn't notice.

Hermione didn't notice.

Remus frowned and tried to figure out which name he was supposed to call her when they were alone. He settled on not saying her name at all. Either way, the girl did not notice that he had few clear memories of her. He stepped into the Room of Requirement and was knocked over by the stench. He had not left any memories of just how horrid her potion was. The clean air bubble secured around his head, he stole up behind her and hugged her. It seemed very forward to him considering she was one step up from being a stranger, but she did not complain. She turned in his arms and wrapped her own around him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Sorry? Remus thought, Why is she sorry? What had she done? Should I be angry?

"It's fine," he said.

"But they know," she said.

They? Who are 'they'? What do 'they' know? Should I be worried that 'they' know whatever it is that they know? he wondered.

"It doesn't matter," he insisted.

"It does to me. It's embarrassing the way they giggle and prod and ask how you were," she said and hugged him tight. "Which was wonderful in case you wanted to know."

"Thank you," he said, not really knowing what she was talking about. He was very glad that she was so intent on rubbing her cheek against his chest instead of looking into his face. He was quite sure that the look of utter perplexity on it would have given her a massive clue that something was very wrong with him.

"Was I?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"You were fantastic," he assured her without pause. He might not remember much, but he was certain she would not ask him a trick question. Also, he could tell by her tone that she really was more than a little apprehensive. If assurances were what she needed, that is what he would give her.

"Can we do it again? Soon?" she asked quietly. "I'm going to be ready to start my spell soon, then I won't be here for long."

"What? Yes, of course. Whenever you like," he smiled and kissed her hair. Somehow he knew it was wrong, her hair. It ought to be softer.

"…now?"

"Now?" He panicked. He didn't know what she wanted him to do, but he had already said that they could do it, whatever it was, whenever she liked. "Sure."

"Good!" She grabbed her bag and his hand and pulled them out of the laboratory. As soon as the door faded back into the solid stone wall, she paced and summoned it again. Remus thought this was all very strange behaviour, but said nothing as he was supposed to know what he had agreed to.

She opened the door and pulled him inside. It was a bedroom with a view of a garden. He recognised the view as the one from his great-grandmother's farmhouse in France, but this room was wrong. All the rooms in that house had worn pine floors with simple woven throw rugs that the woman had bought from Muggles in the village. This room had floors that were too dark and a large oriental rug. The beds in the farmhouse were all small and had canopies to keep the debris falling on their heads from the birds nesting in the thatched roof. This bed was far too large.

The room was quaint and looked like it had been fashioned by someone he had described the farmhouse to and was building it from hearsay and assumptions, but he knew better.

While he stood in silent contemplation of the room, the girl, whatever he ought to call her, threw her bag down and jumped on him. The weight of her in his arms brought him back to the present and the 'it' he had agreed to. He still didn't know what 'it' was, but he suspected he was going to enjoy it. A lot.

oOo

Remus trudged into the Great Hall and lowered himself onto the hard wooden bench. He was sore all over, feeling muscles he had never known existed.

"Well?" James asked. The werewolf's state of discomfort could not be taken as a clear indication that it went well or poorly.

"I took too many memories away," Remus groaned and tried to find a sitting position that didn't hurt. He suspected he had pulled something in his back and probably in his groin, too.

"She knew, right? She kicked your arse for forgetting something important, right?" Sirius said.

"I forgot something important, all right," Remus winced as he reached for his goblet. "I completely forgot what we did last night and agreed to do it again whenever she liked."

"Well, you had sex. You do remember what sex is, right?"

"Yes, and if I had forgotten, she's already reminded me…twice," Remus said. While he was very happy to have so talented a partner, he was greatly annoyed with himself for taking such glorious memories away in the first place. "She was very eager for me to do something I'd done before, but I forgot what it was and had to guess."

"Did you guess right?"

"I think so. She didn't say anything…well, anything I care to repeat in public," he said and a blush touched his cheeks.

Sirius's eyes glittered and he opened his mouth to speak, but James spoke first. "Do you remember the Felix Felicis?" James asked before Sirius could demand to know what the girl had said in the heat of passionate love-making. He spent enough time with the boy to be able to read his demented excitement.

"Uh…yes, Padfoot has it. I had you steal it," he said after a pause, but thought about it for a moment, confusion clear on his face. "Why did I have you steal it?"

"Dammit, Moony, did you take every memory that had anything to do with her?" Sirius kicked him under the table.

"The potion might blow up, remember?" James prompted. When he saw no response, he tried again. "The potion to crystallise time…you said it's the worst stench you've ever smelled short of Padfoot's socks…she's going to cast a spell on it and it might explode…"

"Vaguely remember something about that," Remus said, his eyebrows knit so tightly together they appeared to be one.

"We're putting some of those memories back in right after dinner," Sirius insisted. "There's no way you can pull off a decent conversation this way. She's not just going to want sex every time you meet; there will be some talking involved."

Remus nodded in agreement. His encounter with Mione…Hermione…whoever proved that.

Immediately after dinner, he reinserted all the memories into his head. With them back in place, he realised just how oddly he had acted toward her that afternoon. The only thing that saved him from being noticed was how worried she had been and her desire for an encore. He thought about it and decided which memories would be most effective in helping him remember Hermione as his girlfriend and lover in the future. These he plucked from his head and stored in the flask.

"James," he said. "Write me a letter telling me what's in the flask, would you?"

"Why me? My writing is unreadable," James snorted.

"Just do it!"

"Git," James muttered but wrote out a letter explaining who Mione was and why the memories of her were locked in the flask. He signed it, dated it and blotted the ink. Remus could barely read the writing, but he knew that seeing a letter from a dead man would certainly get his attention in the future.

He conjured a small box, put the letter and flask into it and warded it. The ward would release in precisely seventeen years and four months; the box would open at the end of Hermione's third year at Hogwarts, when he was no longer her teacher. It would be up to him to decide what to do with the memories.

"Has she ever mentioned what happens to any of us?" James asked. "She said you were her teacher and I was going to get Lily and have a son, but anything else?"

"No," Remus lied. "Nothing. The less we know the better."

"Why didn't she mention me at all, I wonder?" Sirius said and leaned back on his bed. "Maybe she doesn't know me in the future."

"Rubbish," James insisted. "If she knows my kid, then she'll know you. You're going to be his Godfather."

"Cheers to that!" Sirius grinned. "I can't wait to meet him. I'm going to teach that kid all kinds of stuff." He sat up suddenly and dove into his bag.

Remus watched him pull out a clean sheet of parchment and smooth it out on his bed before digging out his best ink and a fresh quill. "What are you doing now?" Remus asked wearily.

"Writing my Godson a letter," he said as if it were obvious.

"You're going to know him his whole life," James pointed out. "You don't need to write him a letter."

"No," he said, giving them each a look of pity, like they were too thick to grasp what he was saying. "He will know my adult self his whole life. I want to write him a letter while I am young and foolish."

"As opposed to just talking to him in person when you're old and foolish?" Remus quirked an eyebrow.

"You can shut it, Moony," he pointed the quill tip at him; a drop of ink fell from the point and stained his blanket, but he didn't care. He had a lot to tell the boy. He turned back to the parchment and proceeded to write, with an unnaturally legible penmanship, a letter to Harry.

James edged closer and tried to read the letter. Sirius waved him away. "Do you mind? This is a private letter from me to Harry."

"You will not go filling my son's head with curse words," James pointed at him.

"He'll be sixteen when Mione goes back. I'm sure he's learned them already and probably from you," Sirius smirked and went back to his letter, giggling to himself as he wrote.

While he was distracted, Remus crept around to sneak a peek at the letter. James watched his reaction, steeling himself for the inevitable. "James, he's telling your son about The Niffler Incident!"

"Oi!" Sirius pushed Remus away.

"That never happened!" James dove at the parchment and tore it from Sirius's grip. "I forbid you to write my son a letter! Ever!"

"The boy needs to know these things," Sirius insisted with a grin. "To learn from your mistakes…especially where Nifflers are concerned."

"No. He. Does. Not!" James glared and shredded the parchment with particularly vicious wave of his wand. He sent the shreds flying into the heater at the centre of the room. "No letters! Not ever! Not even if I'm deathly ill and you're the only one with hands capable of writing!"

"You'll be sorry when your son comes home from school one year and he—"

James silenced him with a wave of his wand. Sirius's eyes continued to glitter delightedly as he imagined telling Harry about The Niffler Incident. The boy's father had forbidden him to write it, but he hadn't said anything about telling him in person. So many stories he could tell the boy.

A/N: Kinda sad, no?