Chapter 76: Thursday, June 18, 1981

"You can not defeat an enemy you do not admit exists."

-Michael T. Flynn

Hermione paced outside of the shrieking shack, her heart racing as she covered her ears, trying desperately to block the cries of pain coming from within. When Remus was back in his own body, he would be in need of medical attention, but she couldn't bring herself to leave to get her supplies.

"Are you insane?"

She turned around to see James stomping toward her, his face twisted into exhausted fury.

"I mean honestly, Hermione, do you have a death wish?"

"I—"

"You know, I don't think I want an actual answer to that," James interrupted. "It's one thing to throw yourself into missions and get into close calls for the Order, but this?" He shook his head, "You're damn lucky he didn't bite you."

"I think Moony had to see me," she said, her voice hoarse from the shouting she had done. "I think that was what completed the ritual—"

"Oh, the ritual." James hissed, "Do you have any idea how irresponsible that is? Merlin, Hermione! I get you two are in love, but this seems a little extreme, don't you think?"

"Just because you don't understand it, doesn't make it extreme!" Hermione spat furiously. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same for Lily! Look me in the eye and tell me that if the tables were turned, you wouldn't!"

James' mouth snapped shut and he shoved his hand through his hair, scratching at the back of his head as he tried to come up with a way to prove her wrong. After a few moments, his hand fell back to his side and he sighed. "I guess, if it were Lily, I would. But, that doesn't change the fact that coming here was dangerous and stupid."

"I know," Hermione said. "I know it was! But, it's not like I had a choice. The ritual had to complete itself, I tried to tell you...I don't know what brought me here. It was just a—a feeling! And I disapparated and landed here."

"It sounds barmy, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes," Hermione said, a puff of humorless laugh spilling past her lips. "Yes, I know how it sounds."

"You can leave now, though." James continued, "If you leave now, you can make it home before we get back and he doesn't have to know."

"You think I should lie to him?" Hermione asked, her brows pulling together.

"No, but I think Remus is going to have a panic attack when he wakes up and sees you're here."

"I'm fairly certain it doesn't matter where I tell him, and I'd rather be honest with him about it. We've had enough secrets between us."

James' mouth twisted to the side as he bit into his cheek and nodded, "I suppose you're right. It sounds like he's done...just...just be ready, all right? It's not pretty."

"James, it isn't the first—"

He held a hand up, "I know, but this is different. Last time you saw him, it was outside the lunar cycle, you've never seen him in that shack when he's had a rough go the night before."

Hermione nodded, knowing James was right. She followed behind him, wincing slightly at the feel of rough ground beneath her feet. Now that the adrenaline of the night had worn off, the exhaustion had sunk in and she became very aware of how she must look.

In a feeble attempt to make herself look at least halfway decent, she tried to run her fingers through her hair and used her wand as they walked to heal the minor cuts and scrapes she saw along her limbs. Her hair was matted and full of dirt and small twigs and she knew that without a proper wash, it was going to look terrible no matter what she did. She conjured a thin, elastic band to at least pull it up, hoping to hide some of the obviously terrible state she was in.

With light footsteps, she entered the shrieking shack. It was tiny, compared to the shack she had spent years living in after the war, having been magically enlarged to accommodate the Order. They climbed a rickety set of wooden stairs and Sirius met them at the top of the landing, looking absolutely incensed.

"Go home," he snapped, at once. "You shouldn't be here! You shouldn't have come at all!"

"I know Sirius," Hermione whispered. "I'll explain it all after I see him."

"You could've been killed!" Sirius said, not moving from in front of the door. "Even worse, Moony could have—"

"Padfoot," James said, his voice calm and low. "Move."

Sirius looked from James to Hermione and back to James before giving an angry huff and moving from the path to the door. "Fine, but he's going to kill us both, Prongs. You know that."

"I can deal with Moony," James said. "But he needs to hear what happened."

"Thank you," Hermione said.

She stepped past Sirius and grabbed the handle, turning it slowly and opening the creaky door. Her nose was instantly assaulted with the coppery scent of blood and her stomach churned uncomfortably. Laying on the shredded mattress of the bed, Remus was on his back, his eyes closed and his face pulled in pain.

"We might need to ask Minerva to use her office and floo," he whispered, his voice strangled. "I don't know if I can apparate."

"I'll sidealong you," Hermione said.

Remus, with a great amount of effort, pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the backboard, his body sagging under his own weight. His chest and shoulder were caked in blood, large gashes from Padfoot's unforgiving jaws, puncture wounds from Prongs' antlers… His ribs were heavily bruised—broken, Hermione could guess—and his leg, just above his ankle, was completely mangled.

"What are you doing here?" Remus asked, his voice urgent and terrified.

Hermione bent over, grabbing a piece of glass from the shattered window off the floor and transfigured it into a drinking glass, filling it with water before she shuffled to his side and handed it to him. James had been right, of course, he looked horrible. She had seen him many times after the moon now, had patched him up on more than one occasion, but aside from when he had been attacked by another werewolf, this was the worst she had seen him.

"The werewolf mate ritual," Hermione whispered. "Solidifies on the full moon, remember?"

Remus choked on the water in his mouth, groaning and clutching at his ribs as he spluttered. "No. No. Why are you here? You shouldn't...I didn't...Moony didn't…I-I'm sorry. Fuck, I can't…I knew something terrible would happen! I knew it and I still—"

Remus promptly turned himself to the side of the bed, vomiting violently over the edge of the destroyed mattress, groaning in pain when the heaving stopped. Hermione rushed around the side of the bed and vanished the mess. She climbed gingerly onto the mattress and Remus looked away from her, slamming his eyes closed to avoid her gaze. A few tears leaked from them, rolling down his cheek and dripping from his chin.

"Remus, it wasn't like that at all." Hermione said, reaching out to his hand—only for him to rip it from her grasp the second her skin connected with his. "Listen to me, you did not hurt me. Do you understand? Moony did not hurt me. I am fine."

For several minutes, he still refused to meet her eyes. Actively ignoring her as he tried to work through the night's events in his own head, undoubtedly, trying to figure out how in the hell she had been present all night without being attacked. She could hear the low voices of James and Sirius from the otherside of the door as they talked quietly amongst themselves and Hermione hoped James was explaining what she had told him to Sirius. She felt exhausted, and didn't have it in her to deal with more than one problem at a time right now. And Remus' absolute shut down upon seeing her was a problem.

Carefully, she moved down the bed, trying her best to not disrupt Remus' thoughts. If she knew Remus, and she was pretty confident she did, he was fighting with Moony right now as he attempted to find some way to blame himself for her being here. She grimaced at the up-close sight of his ankle, savagely shredded into oozing lumps of raw flesh by Padfoot earlier in the night. The bone beneath was broken, she could tell, and she pressed her lips into a firm line. She would need to talk to James and Sirius about the way they found fit to corral a rambunctious Moony.

"I'm going to set your leg, but it's going to hurt. I can't heal it properly until we're back home." Hermione whispered, taking the noncommittal sound coming from the pillow as consent to patch him up.

Hermione waved her wand to conjure fresh bandages that she tied tightly around his leg and ankle to staunch the bleeding. Remus did little more than wince, and she apologized when she set it in a splint, transfigured from a bit of wood that dangled from the frame of the bed. She moved back toward the head of the bed, using her wand to clean the wounds that littered his torso the best she could. It wasn't perfect, but it would be enough until they got back to the cottage. She felt nervous with the lack of conversation on his end, sure he had hundreds of questions about the night and wondered if the wounds he had sustained led him to believe he had done something terrible.

When she had bandaged his shoulder, the second time she'd had to clean a wound from antlers puncturing straight through, she used a quick Scourgify to wash the blood from her hands and lightly cupped Remus' face.

"Look at me," she said, gently pulling his face toward her.

His eyes immediately cast downward, unable to meet hers.

"You did not hurt me, Remus. I'm fine. It was the ritual."

With as much detail as she could muster, given she didn't really understand it herself, she went on to explain the feeling she had while standing outside of their home, the warmth in her chest that had brought her to the Forbidden Forest to meet Moony. Slowly. His eyes finally found hers and she offered him an encouraging smile.

"I promise, if anything bad would have happened to me, I would tell you. But, I'm okay."

"You don't look okay."

Hermione snorted a laugh, "I suppose I could use a shower, but I look a sight better than you do."

His puff of laughter turned into several minutes of coughing as he clutched his side, his broken ribs shifting painfully. When he was finally able to breathe again—albeit, wheezing slightly— Hermione leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"It's almost like I can feel your heartbeat with mine," she whispered against his skin.

After carefully apparating back to their cottage, Hermione forced several healing potions on Remus, took a shower, and climbed into their bed. They slept most of the day away, until a knock on the door roused them both just before six in the evening. Hermione groaned as she peeled herself from the warm bed, pulling Remus' arm from her waist in the process. She rubbed her bleary eyes and stepped into the living room, opening the front door mid-yawn.

"You know you can just come in, the wards are keyed to you." Hermione said, irritably.

"I knew you'd still be sleeping, I had to get you up somehow and I didn't fancy walking in on you and Moony in bed," Sirius smirked.

"If you knew we'd be asleep, why did you come over?" Hermione asked, standing in the open doorway, refusing to let Sirius pass.

"Because, kitten, unlike you lovely little lovebirds, I remember when we have obligations. There's an Order meeting."

"Bugger," Hermione said, under her breath. She glared at Sirius when he chuckled. "Remus is still in bed, he needs to rest."

"He'll be fine," Sirius said. "Not the first time he's had to function after a full moon."

"I really think it'd be best if he—"

"Hermione?" Remus called from the hallway, "Where'd you go, I'm feeling a little better. I thought maybe we could...oh. Hey, Pads."

"Oh, don't let me interrupt, Moonpie. What did you think you guys could do?"

Remus' face flushed a brilliant shade of red and Hermione closed her eyes, shaking her head while Sirius burst into a fit of laughter.

"There's an Order meeting that we forgot about," Hermione said, stepping away from the door and ushering Sirius inside. "This intrusive moron was coming to let us know it started."

"Shit, yeah. Erm, yeah, all right. Give us a minute to get dressed then, we'll be right there." Remus said, rubbing a hand over his face.

"I'll wait, knowing what's on your mind, you'll miss the meeting. Not that I can blame you." Sirius said, purposefully raking his gaze exaggeratedly over Hermione's form.

"Pig," Hermione huffed.

"Dog," Sirius corrected. "And hurry up, won't you? Moody gets all...well, moody when he'd kept waiting for too long."

Hermione and Remus rushed into the bedroom, quickly throwing on something more appropriate for being around people in, and headed into the living room with Sirius.

"I'm going to side-along the both of you. We're changing the meeting place every week now," Sirius explained.

After the uncomfortable sensation that was being shoved through a tube, their feet hit the grass outside of a small, but comfortable looking home that was unfamiliar to Hermione. Sirius led the way into the house, loudly announcing their arrival and Hermione rolled her eyes when James stood, clapping loudly.

"Enough, this is a serious matter!" Moody barked, eyeing Hermione and Remus as they entered the room.

"Sorry," Remus mumbled, taking a seat next to Lily.

"If you aren't prepared to be here for every meeting—"

"Last night was a full moon," Hermione interrupted, giving a pointed look to Moody. "I know a lot of people pay no mind to the lunar cycles, but we unfortunately can not afford that luxury—as you very well know."

"Yeah, all right." Moody grumbled in return, with a narrowed gaze. "As I was saying, the Longbottoms are finally fit to fight, after months of rehabilitation training. Unfortunately, with the Ministry in the state that it's in, they've found themselves without jobs."

"They were sacked?" James asked, looking irate.

"Aye," Moody said, sadly. "Indefinite leave, the Ministry is calling it. It's happening to a lot of our folks."

"What about Dorcas?" Hermione asked, "I heard what happened while I was...ill. Do we have any leads?"

"Lord Voldemort himself." Kingsley said, sadly. "All the signs are leading to his spellwork."

"What happened to Meadows is a heinous act of violence against all of us," Moody said. "We've been infiltrated. The wards on her home were set by myself and Dumbledore, unless the address was given by someone in our ranks, there was no way he could have found it."

"It could have been the Ministry though, couldn't it?" Emmeline Vance spoke up, "I mean, it's not like we had headquarters under a Fidelius! She lived in a muggle area, she would have had to register the address with the Ministry, wouldn't she? It doesn't necessarily mean there's a spy."

"Sounds awfully suspicious," Sirius muttered, under his breath.

"And what does that mean, Black?" Emmeline spat.

"It means, Vance," Sirius turned to look at her. "That a spy in our ranks would absolutely cook up some cheap cover story about the Ministry having access to Doe's house!"

"It isn't a cheap cover story, it's the truth!"

Within seconds, everyone seemed to be arguing and Hermione sat back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as her mind threw a dozen images of the past at her.

Images of a scared, filthy man with sharp front teeth and a missing finger swirled through her mind. A man cowering on the floor, begging forgiveness from his friends, from James' son. A man clutching at her own robes, paying her compliments, begging her to spare him. Harry's voice retelling the same man, literally giving a limb for the Dark Lord, of a graveyard and merciless killing of a brilliant, talented Hufflepuff boy.

She could end this all now. She could pipe up, point a finger at Peter, who was quiet in the corner next to James. She could come clean, tell them all how she got here, who she really was and give them the remaining information she had.

And yet…

When the time is right, you'll know what to do. You always do.

James' words bounced around her mind, forcing her to swallow the words that had been forming on her tongue. Forcing her to tear her gaze away from the terrified man in the corner, and to the room at large, who were fighting amongst themselves.

Time doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.

"Granger!" Moody barked.

Hermione snapped her head in his direction, "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Dumbledore said you've been working to deconstruct the curses the Death Eaters have been using," Moody said, clearly irritated to have to be repeating himself. "Where do you stand?"

Hermione cleared her throat and straightened up in her chair, "We've been able to break down the simpler curses," she began. "However, finding a counter-curse isn't quite as easy as we had originally hoped for. These curses were created for the sheer purpose of destruction, they did not create counter-curses to accompany them."

There was an audible intake of breath in the room.

"The Unforgiveables are the only ones without counter-curses, I thought?" Lily said, with a frown as she shifted Harry in her lap, bouncing him on her knees, absentmindedly.

"That's right," Hermione said. "So, you can understand why these curses have become...troublesome. Some of them have potions we can use as antidotes to slow down the effects of the curses, but even that doesn't guarantee a cure." Hermione felt Remus' palm warm her knee as he gave it a gentle squeeze. Her eyes pulled away from Moody to look at him, suddenly tired despite sleeping all day. "They're fighting with fire."

To voice to everyone that her research and hours spent locked in a dingy old cabin with Snape had been less than fruitful, was an enormous blow to her psyche. In her own time, Hermione Granger always had the answers. Her research was thorough, flawless even, but here? In 1981, Hermione Granger felt helpless. The war was progressing even further, people were dying and disappearing left and right. The Order's numbers dwindled as the Death Eaters gained support. The Ministry forced the hand of neutral parties by way of Imperiused employees and Voldemort had secured backings from vampires, giants, and the deadliest packs of werewolves on the continent.

Her words lingered heavy in the air, the weight of them crushing every person in the comfortable—if a bit cramped—dining room.

After the meeting, the small group met back at James and Lily's cottage. Hermione sat on the sofa, a snoring Harry in her arms and Remus' thigh pressed against hers, as they talked over the information they had been given. Sirius and Remus would both be, yet again, sent on missions in two weeks time. Until then, they were to wait orders from Dumbledore. Peter was told he would be working alongside Mundungus Fletcher to gather intel acting as patrons of the seedier parts of Knockturn Alley and would report back to The Hog's Head to pass the information to Aberforth Dumbledore as needed. He would be meeting Mundungus in the morning to get their cover solidified and until then, he sat in the armchair across from Hermione, staring into his hands as everyone talked.

A seething hatred roiled in Hermione's gut as she looked over Peter. Every interaction she's had with him in the past replayed in her mind. He had betrayed them all already; had clearly sold out Dorcas Meadows and the location of Headquarters. Had sent her to be attacked by Dementors or Werewolves, or both. He would betray them even larger than that in time, but even as the knowledge that he was the spy sat burning in the forefront of her mind, she couldn't pinpoint the exact action that she could use to turn him over. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to dig through her fragmented memories, anything to pull up the information that would be the nail in the coffin for Peter Pettigrew.

It was unfair, really, that she knew he was the reason the Order had been betrayed. Knew Peter was the mole, the weak link, yet what proof did she have? Aside from a memory of a crazed Sirius screaming in a shack and coordinates hastily scribbled on parchment, she had no solid evidence that it was Peter who would be their downfall. If she could only just remember the exact events that happened, she could use a pensieve and prove it.

Harry began to fuss in her arms, large tears rolling down his chubby face as he wailed. Lily quickly jumped in, scooping him from Hermione's arms and taking him into his nursery to fall back asleep in his crib.

"Are you okay?" Remus whispered, pressing a chaste kiss to her temple.

"I'm fine," Hermione said, feeling anything but.

.

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a/n: Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I'm not sure if I'll be able to update on Saturday. My sister is in the military and I havent seen her in 7 months, and she was able to get clearance to get me and our other sister on base this weekend to see her! So, we're driving across the country tomorrow to spend Saturday with her! Because of this, I'm not sure what the internet situation is going to be and if I'll have time to dedicate to it. I'll be posting the chapter as soon as I get home, if I'm unable to do it Saturday!

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter! 3