A/N:
Hello hello! I know, what's it been? Two weeks? Three!? What can I say... I got stuck on this chapter and then lost track of time, but my six-hour train journey up to Aberdeenshire gave me the chance to get back into it. As did a helpful discussion with the wonderful o0sarena0o 3 I hope you all like the result!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or come and find me on tumblr mxstyassasxin
Much love xx
Chapter 28 - Undulation
A few days later, Hermione found herself once again watching Draco at breakfast. Not because of the increasing confusion she felt when she thought of this new version of Draco, but because of the large parcels forming a wall around his place at the Slytherin table.
When the owls dropped a sixth parcel precariously on top of the stack, he set down his fork and twisted his torso, searching along the hall from one end of the Gryffindor table to the other until his gaze landed on her. Seeing that she was already watching him and his growing pile of parcels, he looked pointedly towards Ginny, then Luna, then back to her before inclining his head sideways towards the parcels. The message was clear; a bit of help here, Granger. She could almost hear his perfect, practised drawl in her head.
She nodded at him, her lips quirking at one corner, but held up a single index finger while she brought the remaining half of her croissant to her mouth and turned to Ginny. "Draco needs us to help him with something."
"I didn't know telepathy was a Werewolf thing?" Ginny grumbled, lifting her head from some last-minute Charms homework to glare across the Great Hall.
"Ginny," Hermione warned.
"Yes, Hermione. I know I should have had this finished last night, but I can't help that Quidditch try-outs are more complicated this year."
"That wasn't what..."
"Just let me finish this paragraph."
"Ginny, I wasn't going to say that," Hermione kept her voice soft. "I know you've got to think about the Gryffindor team as well. I just wish you wouldn't get so testy about Draco."
"Sorry, 'Mione," Ginny murmured, putting the final few sentences down on parchment before setting her quill down. "Here," she pushed it over to Hermione. "What do you think?"
Hermione looked over the additions Ginny had made while she polished off her croissant and pumpkin juice. It wasn't as detailed in the explanation of theory as Hermione's answer, but Ginny hadn't left out any of the vital information, and it was all correct as far as she could tell.
"It's good," she nodded thoughtfully. "It's all there but you could add a bit about the evolution of these specific wand movements if you wanted to."
Ginny raised her eyebrows incredulously at Hermione and scoffed lightly. "No way. I'm not going back into it. You said it's good, so it'll do." She took the parchment back from Hermione and rolled it into a tight scroll before slipping it into her bag and standing up. "Come on then. Let's see what Malfoy wants this time."
"I assumed that would appear obvious," Hermione muttered drily, prompting Ginny to look over at Draco and begin laughing.
"Oh that's brilliant. Maybe we should just leave him like that until the owls have built him into his own little prison."
"Ginny! That's not funny!" Hermione's eyes grew wide.
"Oh, come on 'Mione."
"No. Get Luna would you," she snapped and left Ginny standing there blinking while she headed towards Draco.
"You alright, Granger?" Draco asked when she sat astride the bench next to him and began pulling at a loose thread on her robe.
"Yeah. Fine. Ginny's just being... I don't know. She's just..." Hermione trailed off sighing. She didn't know why she found the way Ginny was acting towards Draco annoying. After all, it wasn't anything worse than what they'd all said in the past.
Draco looked over Hermione's shoulder, presumably at Ginny and Luna approaching, then smirked at her. "Don't worry about it, Granger. She doesn't have to accept me completely."
"But she does," Hermione whined before abruptly stopping herself. Ginny didn't have to do anything. She didn't want that, for herself or her friends, yet the words had come so automatically to her lips.
"Why, Granger?" Draco cocked his head to one side as he regarded her.
"I don't... I don't know," she admitted quietly just before the others stepped up behind her.
Draco blinked away his confusion and his mask slipped back into place. Not the old one that held a defensive sneer - the one that he still showed to students who got too close or too inquisitive - but the one Hermione had come to recognise as a teasing smirk that only his friends ever saw.
"Care to help me out, ladies?" his eyes sparkled with humour and Hermione couldn't help the grin that spread across her face at the happy tone in his voice.
"Of course, Draco," Luna's response was immediate, reaching over to lift one of the parcels.
Ginny, with her chaser's strength, rolled her eyes and picked up a stack of two parcels but remained silent. Hermione saw Draco consider lifting two himself, but she had also noticed that he still wasn't eating as much as most people at mealtimes and hadn't regained his full strength from his time in Azkaban. She would have to do something about that, Hermione thought to herself, brow furrowing.
Before he could strain himself, Hermione cast a featherlight charm on the remaining three parcels, receiving a scowl from Draco around the two parcels he had lifted into his arms. She ignored him and picked up the final parcel. "So, where are we going and what are these?"
"The library," Draco huffed. "They're the books I sent to my mother for."
"Oh wonderful," Hermione lit up as the four of them set off to brighten Madam Pince's day, Draco and Hermione following Ginny and Luna out of the Great Hall.
"I know what you did, Granger," Draco hissed from her side as they began to climb the stairs. "I didn't need your help."
"What help? I did nothing out of the ordinary for a witch, did I?" She raised one eyebrow at him and was rewarded by an incomprehensible grumble that continued all the way to the library.
The six parcels of books from the Manor's library cheered Madam Pince up immediately; the usually dour witch chasing them from the library with an expression of gleeful anticipation on her face when the bell rang for classes. Narcissa's delivery would fill in some of the major gaps on the shelves and make the library feel more complete again.
X - X - X
As October grew closer, Hermione let herself begin to enjoy her final year of school without worrying about being a Wolf or how she would manage the next moon. But it didn't mean that her nature was never on her mind. She was still Alpha of her pack, so she found herself taking an interest in Ginny's frustrations as Quidditch captain, persuading Draco to tell her the news Andromeda sent him about Teddy, and using half her time in the freshly stocked library to write letters and check in with Harry and the Weasley's; particularly Mrs Weasley, George and Percy.
By the time she began taking her wolfsbane potion, Hermione had heard back from everyone she had written to apart from Harry and Ron. Until that week arrived, she hadn't been too worried because she knew they were busy at Auror training. She also knew what they could be like about putting things off until later, having spent seven years with them at school.
Ginny noticed that Hermione was tearing at her lower lip one day during Herbology, and pulled her to one side after class, a concerned look on her face. "'Mione, you've been pulling at your lip the whole time through class. What's wrong?"
"I haven't heard back from Harry or Ron."
"Still?" Ginny look frustrated. "How long has it been?"
"I don't know. About ten days." Hermione knew that it had been exactly ten days.
"I'm sure they'll reply soon. I'll chase Harry up for you, okay?"
Hermione nodded but kept her head bowed, so Ginny wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her up the path from the greenhouses and on to their next class.
X - X - X
Two days later, Hermione finally received an apologetic letter from Harry. Firstly, he was apologetic for not writing back to her sooner, but he was also apologetic, very much so, for the fact that the Aurors were finally heading on a multi-day, in-the-field training session. He was immensely apologetic for this because it meant that they would have to be away for the full moon which was now very quickly approaching.
"He really should have replied sooner," Hermione exclaimed as she thrust the letter at Ginny. "Why did he not think to tell me this earlier?"
"He was worried about telling you, 'Mione."
"Well I wouldn't have been so annoyed if he had given me more than two days' notice!" Hermione huffed before being struck with realisation. "Wait, you knew he was worried. You knew they weren't coming?"
"I thought he would have written to you earlier! When you said he hadn't, I really laid into him about it."
"Right," Hermione was distracted by about ten different trains of thought running through her head, so it took her a while to see the stricken look on Ginny's face.
"Ginny," she sighed, trying to pacify the other witch. "I don't blame you. Harry or Ron should have told me, but it is what it is and now I have to figure it out."
"Not alone though. I'm still here," Ginny smiled readily, but Hermione barely heard her, having already strayed back to her thoughts.
"And you know what Draco will say when he finds out it will just be you and I this month," Hermione groaned, closing her eyes and reaching up to rub the back of her neck, her thoughts taking a detour onto what she could possibly say to appease Draco.
"Why does he have to say anything?" Ginny's raised voice yanked Hermione's attention back to her again. "What does it matter what he would say? And why is he going to bloody find out in the first place?"
"I can't not say anything, Ginny," Hermione frowned.
"Why, Hermione? Why?" Ginny stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for an answer.
"I just... He worries. About me being there for Teddy and Andromeda."
"So?"
"What do you mean, so?" Hermione's stance grew more territorial, shoulders back, chest forwards as she dealt with Ginny's questioning; questioning that she didn't have time for. "If I say he should know what's going on, then he's going to know what's going on."
Ginny unfolded her arms and took a step back, closing her eyes and shaking her head disbelievingly. "You need to think on why that is, Hermione. Malfoy isn't someone you would normally jump to tell this type of news to."
"What is normal about any of this, Ginny? Hmm?" Hermione threw her hands up and, when Ginny didn't answer, Hermione whirled around and headed back down the corridor in the opposite direction.
It took her a while to figure out where she wanted to go, but eventually she realised what exactly it was that kept reoccurring in her scattered thoughts; something Andromeda had mentioned in the letter just before her birthday. She knew the one person she should be talking to about it so looped back round to the nearest staircase and climbed through the castle to the Headmistress' office.
"Loch Lomond," she spoke the password to the reinstalled gargoyle guarding the staircase, thankful that Professor McGonagall had thought to hand the slip of parchment to her at the beginning of term with a quietly spoken if you need anything, Miss Granger, you know where to find me.
Hermione stepped onto the rotating staircase and knocked thrice on the door at the top, waiting until she heard the Headmistress call out before she pushed the door open.
"Professor? Could I ask you about something? Is now a good time?"
"Miss Granger," she greeted. "Of course. Please, come on in. Tea?" Hermione sat in the low armchair that Professor McGonagall indicated and smiled at the sight of a teapot, cup and saucer floating towards her.
"Yes, thank you." She claimed her teacup out of the air and took a rejuvenating sip while McGonagall poured her own cup and came to sit in the second armchair in the room.
"I had thought that you would have come to see me before now, especially after the incident with Mr Potter last month."
"Yes, about that," Hermione began sheepishly before being interrupted.
"Please don't worry yourself about it. It's nothing that hasn't happened before."
"Exactly," Hermione's eyes brightened hopefully. "That's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about." The Headmistress raised her eyebrows and looked curiously at Hermione over the top of her glasses. "You see, Andromeda mentioned in a letter something that she had heard about the Marauders. About Sirius, Remus, James and Pettigrew, that is."
"I'm well aware of the moniker they gave themselves, Miss Granger," her Professor sighed, and Hermione could hear the eyeroll in her voice, but was impressed at the composure she had not to show it.
"Well, Andromeda is under the belief that they didn't remain in the Shack the entire night of the full moons and that it wouldn't be a completely unworkable idea for myself," Hermione trailed off at the end with an enquiring inflection.
"She is correct," McGonagall paused to take a sip of her tea, leaving Hermione on the edge of her seat. "They did not have permission from Professor Dumbledore, yet I am certain he must have known what they got up to during the full moons. I was aware of course, despite how well they thought they could sneak around behind my back. Madam Pomfrey would always call me to the Hospital Wing as Remus' Head of House and I found it curious that he managed to appear there some mornings with hardly a scratch on him. It was only on rare occasions that we had to make our way to the Shack to help him back to the castle, and on such occasions, I couldn't help but notice that some quarrel, or perhaps a detention, had befallen their little group."
"So it is possible?"
"I didn't want to recommend it..."
"But you knew that they managed it?" Hermione gripped the arms of her chair, the floating teacup forgotten.
"I was following the procedures set in place..."
"Procedures?" Hermione shot out of her chair. "You just admitted to me that Remus was better on the nights when those procedures weren't followed. That those nights were the ones where he didn't have a scratch on him."
"I will remind you, Miss Granger," McGonagall spoke slowly, "that despite my willingness to assist you, I am not part of your pack so would thank you to kindly lower your voice and sit down."
Hermione looked down at her professor, taking deep, quick breaths through flared nostrils, the sharp jasmine of McGonagall's perfume breaking through the haze of frustration that had come over her.
"I believed that allowing and training your friends to become Animagi so that they could accompany you during full moons would be enough. I believed that the Marauders had only strayed from the Shack to rule break and test my patience."
"You didn't think that being cooped up would be detrimental," Hermione summed up, forgoing her chair in favour of pacing behind it, rubbing her hand across her face.
"I felt it would be the best way to keep everyone safe."
"Did you see how that backfired last week?" Hermione murmured through gritted teeth.
"I did," McGonagall nodded solemnly.
"I am not Remus Lupin, Professor. The way he felt about his nature may have reduced him to cowering away to the point of self-mutilation, but I won't do that. I won't." Hermione stopped pacing and gripped the back of the chair, looking over it to meet the Headmistress' gaze. "You don't have to sanction it but know that, if you don't, you will be forcing me to go against you. And I really don't want to do that, believe me Professor, but I know that I can manage it. I know that it will be better for everyone."
McGonagall took another sip from her teacup before levelling her gaze at Hermione. "The wards around the grounds will be reinforced and I will be warding the castle itself against you, Miss Granger, between dusk and dawn on the nights of the full moon."
"I understand, Professor," Hermione nodded respectfully before turning on her heel to leave the office.
"Hermione?" the calm, unexpected utterance of her name pulled her up just short of the door. "I hope you know that I do trust you."
"I know, Professor," she replied without turning, reaching for the doorknob then hurrying down the stairs.
She had plans to make.