Chapter 81: Thursday, September 3, 1981

"I have realized that the stakes are myself. I have no other ransom money, nothing to barter or break but my life."

-Diane DiPrima

In the days since the attack on Ted and Andromeda's shop, the air remained tense around the Potter's. Remus was understandably upset with Sirius and what he had been insinuating. So, naturally, instead of talking to Sirius and trying to come to some sort of understanding, Remus actively ignored Sirius.

"Just talk to him," Hermione begged, for what felt like the millionth time. "You know he's going to be at the meeting tonight. It's going to be better for everyone if you talk to him beforehand, Remus."

Remus pulled his oven mitts off and tossed them to the counter, sighing in frustration. "You don't know how he gets," he muttered.

"I think I have a pretty good idea," Hermione sighed, rolling her eyes. "You're both being stubborn."

"I am not being stubborn!"

Hermione arched an eyebrow at him, folding her arms over her chest. "You're not?"

"No."

"Really?"

Remus stared at her, deadpanned. "N-no."

Hermione adjusted her stance, kicking her hip out to the side and biting down on the inside of her cheek. "It's a misunderstanding. He's feeling nervous because of Bellatrix showing up, he's rightfully afraid. Think about it, Remus. Everyone he knows has been threatened now and—"

"We know all the same people!" Remus nearly shouted, "And yet, he's insinuating that I'm the-the spy? What does he have to go off of? What have I done that would lead one of my best friends to think that I would turn against them?"

"It's nothing that you've done! Don't you see? This is exactly what Dumbledore was referencing!" Hermione waved her hand wildly in the air, trying to make her point. "We can't start turning against one another! Clearly, there's a leak of information happening and—"

"A leak of information?" Remus snorted, "Hermione, open your eyes! There were half a dozen Death Eaters waiting for us to arrive! That's not a bloody coincidence!"

"So, what exactly are you insinuating, then?" She shot back.

"Nothing!" Remus threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "I'm not the one insinuating a damn thing! It's Sirius who—"

"That's enough!" Hermione barked, "We're going in circles now and I've heard enough of you blaming your friend for this attack! Sirius showed up and fought with us! Do you honestly believe that he would have leaked that we were going to Diagon Alley if he planned on fighting with us? Besides, I didn't tell anyone we were planning on going! Did you?"

She folded her arms over her chest again, looking at him expectantly. Remus sighed and sat heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, scratching at the place between his brows and shaking his head.

"No," he mumbled. "No, I didn't tell anyone we'd be there."

"So, if you didn't tell anyone, and I didn't tell anyone, how on earth do you think Sirius could have known before the message was sent out? He showed up seconds before James and Frank."

"I don't know."

"He couldn't have."

Remus clenched his jaw and looked up at her through his lashes, "I suppose he couldn't have."

Hermione sighed and pulled the chair next to him away from the table, taking a seat and resting her palm between his shoulder blades. She could feel a knot forming from the tension in his back and she frowned, kneading her fingers into it.

After a few moments of her attempting to work the tightness from his shoulders, he relaxed a bit, slumping forward and turning his head to look at her.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

He sighed and sat back, trapping Hermione's hand between the chair and his back. "For making this into...I don't know...something it isn't?"

Hermione leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the side of his face, "Just talk to him, okay?"

"Yeah. I will."

They sat at a cramped table in a small room of a run down house just outside of Essex. The smell of mildew and mothballs assaulted Hermione's nose and she wondered if everyone else felt as suffocated in the small room as she did. Judging by the constant pull of his collar, in an attempt to create some sort of breathing room, Remus did as well.

Moody was droning on about the events that had unfolded in Diagon Alley a few days prior. He and Kingsley had apparently swept the Alley, asking questions and inspecting the remaining shop owners. Aside from a list of people who were thought to be under an Imperius, they had all said the same.

Diagon Alley had been constantly under watch for weeks. None of the other shops had been attacked yet, and the few that had been boarded up had left of their own volition. Business had dropped significantly in the last few months, causing a lot of the smaller shops to close their doors. It had not gone past the notice of Moody, or anyone in the Order, for that matter, that the businesses had begun to decline the same time the Death Eaters made themselves known.

Fear was gripping the entire Wizarding World now, there was no more turning a blind eye to the things that were happening. The disappearances, the murders, the warnings… No one could deny that Lord Voldemort and his followers were rising in power. Even the Ministry was completely under his control, now. More and more of the workers were being forced to sign legislations to further the purist agenda, many of them without even knowing it.

Moody spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the importance of recognizing the Imperius curse, going in length to discuss evidence of being affected by one. He spent nearly an hour demonstrating how to break free from the curse, and then moved into talking about the more extreme measures being used to gain control.

Hermione could feel the hopelessness in the room—it swelled within, almost as stifling as the pungent odour of mold that clung to the rain soaked walls. Inferi, werewolves, Imperio curses, maims and murders… They were losing this war, and they all knew it.

Beside her, she could feel Remus shift in his seat, his hand sinking into his pocket to pull out the small phial containing the potion he had swiped from the last den he stayed in. He looked as if he were about to speak, his tongue darting out to wet his lips in a nervous flicker as he cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

"If there's nothing else to add, we can move on?" Dumbledore said.

Hermione's hand reached out, settling over Remus' wrist. She squeezed it gently and looked at him, giving a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

No.

His eyebrow furrowed for a moment and the apple of his throat bobbed as he swallowed. He shoved the phial back into his pocket and looked at her from the corner of his eye.

It wasn't that she didn't want to bring the potion back to the attention of the Order. In fact, had she had access to the potion a year ago, when they had first been exposed to it, she would have gladly asked Remus to report his findings. However, the tension in the room was growing with every passing moment and she couldn't pull her eyes away from the way Peter leaned over to Sirius, whispering in his ear every so often.

Despite her best efforts to keep Remus from lunging at Sirius and smacking him about the head for thinking that he could possibly be the spy, Remus was still angry. And Sirius had been less than receptive to the conversation Remus had tried to initiate upon their arrival. She couldn't hear what Peter was telling him, but she assumed that should Remus bring up that he's had access to this potion and has had a bit of it in his possession, that Peter would use that to fuel the fire of doubt within Sirius.

On top of the skepticism coming from Sirius' belief in loyalty toward Remus, Hermione had yet to figure out what the liquid base of the potion even was. She knew there would be questions—rightfully, so. The Order would want to know the effects of the potion of course, but also the accessibility of it was alarming. If they were unable to dismantle it, not knowing what the ingredients were, it would only lead to more people being weary of Remus.

She knew, without a doubt, that Remus wanted to bring it to their attention to establish honesty in the situation. To prove he wasn't using the potion to engage in any of the nefarious deeds the werewolves were being accused of. But, she was hesitant to shed light on something she knew so little about, when Remus' life hung in the balance.

When no one objected to Dumbledore's continuation of the meeting, he clasped his hands, a grim expression taking over his face. "There's been another attack on one of our own."

A collective gasp stole the room and Hermione began to run through her mind, the people sittin before her and the ones missing. So many of them had been attacked or killed, so many of them had felt the effects of Voldemort's wrath at their resistance. She wondered who could have been the unfortunate receiver, now.

"The Vance's were attacked in their home yesterday evening," Dumbledore said. "Emmeline is in St. Mungo's with a few injuries, her brother was killed."

Weighted silence hung in the air, lingering in the down turned gazes of the remaining Order members, sitting heavily atop the breaths that whispered between their parted lips. Another member down, another person who had been punished for their resistance, another whose location had been discovered.

It was only a matter of time before they found what they were looking for.

Hermione laid awake, listening to the soft intakes of breath as Remus slept next to her. She stared at the ceiling, her brows pulled together in concentration as she studied the dark spot from a leak that had filtered through the shingles. Her vision blurred as she stared intently at the spot above her, and she found her mind wandering.

It had been easy, in the last almost two years, to forget the position she was in. She had been so engrossed in her relationship with Remus, that she had wasted time she could have used to put toward unravelling the curses in the journal or figuring out how to undo the damage that had been done by Dolohov to the muggleborns-turned-Dementors.

She didn't regret her relationship with Remus. How could she? When he still made her stomach flutter and her heart sputter and her knees weak—he was everything important to her. The very reason she had even thought to come to this time, in the first place. But, she had spent so much time feeding a feeling of hopelessness with chocolate flavoured kisses, that she hadn't actually done anything to better the situation. And now, she was staying.

She was sure that staying would have consequences and she tried not to dwell too heavily on that fact, but it was something she found herself thinking about constantly in the early mornings when sleep evaded her.

"Why did you stop me?"

Remus' voice broke through her concentration on the water damage on her ceiling and she turned her head on her pillow, meeting his gaze as he blinked heavily back at her.

"I thought you were sleeping."

"I was," he whispered. "But, I got a strange feeling and it woke me up."

"Sorry," Hermione said.

He gave his head a tiny shake, "Don't be."

That had been happening frequently, since the ritual had solidified. Hermione often found herself with a strong urge to wake in the middle of the night now, when Remus was particularly restless or frustrated.

"You didn't answer my question," he prodded.

Hermione sighed, "I didn't want to bring any more attention to what you've been doing."

"Because of Sirius?"

"Not exactly," she said.

Even in the dim light filtering in from the crescent moon that hung outside, she could see him raise his eyebrows in question.

"Okay, partially."

"Thought so."

"He isn't the only one who's questioning loyalties, Remus. If we bring up this potion, I want to be able to explain the properties of it. How it works and what they're using it for…"

"All the things we don't know."

Hermione nodded, the pillowcase rubbing against her cheek. "Exactly. There's a lot we don't have answers for, and I'm tired of questions."

Remus budged over, slipping an arm beneath her and pulling her closer to his side. He tucked his chin into his chest to place a kiss on her forehead as she looked up at him. "I know," he said. "Me too."

Wednesday, September 16, 1981

At Hermione's insistence, Remus went to see his father in Wales. He hadn't been back to his childhood home in quite some time, and after a few letters from Lyall, Hermione had forced Remus out the door to spend the morning with him. He hadn't been doing well, since losing Hope, and Hermione worried for him.

Lyall was a nice man, she had long decided. He cared for his son and she knew that Hope would be happy to know that Remus was trying to accept his father's extended hand. Even if there was still a bit of uncertainty in that reception.

At a clicking sound against the window, Hermione stood from her place at the table as she looked over the Daily Prophet. She had been reading an article about a family that had fled to Spain, only to have been hunted down and killed while on a muggle train. The Death Eaters were becoming more and more bold with the messages they were sending: there was no fleeing.

The owl that sat perched in the window was unfamiliar to her, a large, tawny owl with a white belly and yellow eyes. It stuck out it's leg for her to untie the scroll and flew away before she could even think to give it a treat for its travels. There was no seal on the parchment, which was tied with a black string. And when she opened it, she did not recognize the handwriting.

They know who you are. Leave.

Hermione stared at the parchment, flipping it over in her hands, looking for anything to clue her into who may have sent the message. Her heart began to race, her mouth feeling dry. The longer she stared at it, the more she realized it was a threat.

It wasn't a friendly bit of information being passed to someone. The last word—leave—was not a suggestion, but a demand.

Hermione set the parchment on the table and rushed into the living room, pulling her journals from the coffee table and stepped back into the kitchen. She sat back down and shoved the Prophet aside, opening both journals up to compare handwriting.

She knew Antonin Dolohov's handwriting almost as well as she knew her own, by now. She was confident that he had not been the person to send her this letter. And after years of having Snape leave her scathing comments on Potion's essay, she was certain the letter had not come from him either. Still, she compared the writing, hoping that the strange feeling in her gut was wrong.

Somewhere in the back of her head she heard Harry telling her she needed to follow her instincts more, and she snorted. Her instincts were proving to be faulty at best, anymore. However, with her throat feeling tight, she opened her personal journal to the back pages to look for the scrawl of coordinates Peter had written inside of it.

She puffed out a frustrated breath when her fingers fell upon the back page to find it torn in half, the coordinates she had taken with her when she went to find Remus, ripped from the book and shoved into the pocket of her jeans. Merlin only knew what had happened to the crumpled bit of paper at this point.

And it came down to the simple question of intention, as it often did, for Hermione.

Would Peter warn her?

Peter, who wasn't present the day that Sirius had confronted Hermione, just after Christmas, nearly two years ago. Peter, who she had seen scurry through her kitchen, who Sirius and Remus had both sensed in her home when she had thought she had been alone.

Peter, who would turn on his friends. Who would plant seeds of doubt between them, who would give up the locations of safe houses and the headquarters, who would be missing from nearly every meeting, always under the guise of an assignment or caring for his mother.

No.

She did not believe that Peter would warn her and she did not believe that he would send her a message when Remus could have just as easily been at the house, and would instantly recognize his handwriting. It didn't make sense. If not Peter, then who?

Hermione pulled a blank page from the journal and scribbled a note to Dumbledore, perhaps he would be able to shed light on the situation, perhaps he still held answers in secret from them all.

With both notes in hand, Hermione tied the laces of her trainers and grabbed her wand. She quickly made her way over to James and Lily's, looking over her shoulder every few steps. When she arrived at their front door, she didn't pause to knock—instead, she turned the handle and slipped inside.

"James?" she called out, toeing her shoes off at the door and following the sound of Harry's laughter to the bathroom. "James are you home?"

"Giving Harry a bath," he called, "You can come in!"

Hermione pushed the door to open and laughed at the sight of Harry, hair sticking up in all directions as he splashed happily in the tub.

"Hey, Hermione! Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Hermione said. "Yeah, I think so. I just wondered if I could borrow Kevin to send this letter to Dumbledore?"

"If he's back, yeah. Lily sent him to Cokesworth about two hours ago though, so I'm not sure if he's flown back in yet." James looked over his shoulder, the front of his shirt soaked through with bubbles and bath water. His brows pulled together and he frowned, "You don't look okay."

Hermione stepped further in and sat on the closed lid of the toilet, her fingers crumpling at the edges of the parchment in her hands. "No, I suppose I don't. Is Lily around?"

"Sleeping," James answered. "Harry kept her up half the night. Teething, apparently."

Harry let out a loud shriek of laughter as a bit of the bath foam stuck to his hand and Hermione smiled at him. "I got a strange letter today," she said, her voice dropping a bit in volume. "I'm not sure what to make of it."

"Let me get Harry down for a kip, and we'll talk?"

Hermione nodded, "Yeah, okay."

She made her way into the living room as James finished giving Harry his bath. She listened, a wistful smile on her face as she heard James talk to Harry.

"Oh? Well that sounds lovely! Tell me more!" and "Well I'm not quite sure, Harry. Your mum may have something to say about that!" carried into the room in an amused tone.

She wondered, for only a moment, what would happen to her Harry when she stayed behind. The nauseating thought that he may disappear—just cease to exist—made her sink her teeth into her bottom lip. It's for the better. He'll grow up happy and loved and not living in a cupboard.

Finally, James exited the back of the house and sat down across from Hermione on the sofa, sighing heavily. "I swear all of his back teeth are coming in at once," James complained. "He's fine during the day but at night? I swear, the moon comes out and he's worse than Moony."

Hermione laughed, "Could give a full grown werewolf a run for his money?"

"That's an understatement. Moony might howl, but I'm fairly certain Harry's screaming will burst an eardrum."

Hermione chuckled again and shook her head, "Don't let Remus hear that."

"I suppose he wouldn't be too happy about it, no." James laughed, "So, what's got you upset? Did you and Remus…?"

"No, we're fine." Hermione assured him, holding out the letter she received. "I got this today, though."

James quirked an eyebrow and took the parchment, his eyes roaming over the line several times before looking up at her, "Did you recognize the owl?"

Hermione shook her head, "No. I don't know the writing, either. Do you?"

His eyes fell back to the page and he adjusted his glasses on his nose, concentrating on the words. Hermione couldn't help but notice that he poked his tongue out as he studied it, the same way Harry used to when going over a particularly challenging Transfiguration assignment.

Finally, he shook his head and looked up, "No, I don't think I do. Have you told anyone else, about you, I mean."

"No. Andromeda sort of knows, but I don't think she would have sent this."

"That's why you're owling Dumbledore?"

Hermione nodded, "I'm hoping he'll be able to trace it back."

James handed her the parchment and pursed his lips in thought, "I don't like this, Hermione. Something about this doesn't feel right."

Hermione sighed, pushing her hair from her face. "I know."

"Lily told me you're staying," James said.

"Yeah, I think with the curse being gone and the vow broken… Well, I don't have to leave. Not anytime soon, now."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Do you think I should?"

"I didn't say that," he said, quickly. "Just wondering what's going to happen if you stay. Messing with time is risky, you know?"

"I know."

"Whoever sent you this," he motioned his hand to the parchment. "Is trying to scare you into leaving."

"Do you think it's true? That they know who I am?"

James shrugged, shoving a hand through his already disheveled hair to let it settle on the back of his neck. "Dunno. It's pretty vague, isn't it? But then again, it seems as if Voldemort's making it his job to track people down. You show up out of nowhere, no connections to anyone, besting some of his best people… You're making waves against them, and he's already proven what happens to those who do."

"Do you think it could just be random, then? Sending me a vague letter like this, grasping at straws to hope something sticks?"

"Could be. I hate to say it, but I think Dumbledore may not be the person you should talk to about it."

"Who, then?"

James grimaced, a look of pure disgust on his face as the name left his lips. "Snape."

"I'm not sure he's going to willingly give me any more information. I've been calling in a lot of favours to him."

"Hopefully he doesn't stick around long enough to cash them in," James grumbled. "At any rate, if you want to know what a Death Eater is thinking, talking to one might be your best bet."

Hermione nodded, taking in a slow breath. "You're probably right."

.

.

a/n: Hope you liked it! 3