A/N: Thank you for all of the sweet reviews, folks! It's so wonderful to hear that you're enjoying the story ❤
Here's a lighter, happier chapter for you guys, this weekend :)
Sirius was beyond furious when he heard about Peter's attack on Hermione, and the group had taken it in turns to make sure Sirius was never alone for the entire month of November, for fear of what he might otherwise do. (Because this dog-sitting duty fell most often to James, Lily complained about this a lot.)
December 1st dawned cold and bright, and brought with it a distinct shift in Sirius' demeanor.
"It's Christmas!" he sang, as he sat down to breakfast.
Remus cocked an eyebrow. "For the whole month?"
"Yes!" Sirius said firmly. "And no one can convince me otherwise. I'm ready to spend the entire rest of this bloody year in festive spirits."
Hermione grinned. "Well, I'm in."
"Ha! I knew I could count on you, Mya!" he leaned around Remus to smush a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
Lily's eyebrows flew into her flaming hair. "Are you drunk?"
"Bah humbug to you, too."
Hermione's smile wavered as her memories leapt to attention. She'd seen Sirius like this once before. Christmas at Grimmauld. Probably it was born of the same desperation mixed with genuine joy at having a family around him to celebrate with. But, mostly desperation. And desperation meant impulsiveness. Desperation got him killed.
"You okay?" Remus whispered.
Hermione pulled her worried gaze away from Sirius. "I don't know."
"Is something bad supposed to happen this Christmas?"
Hermione jerked from her musings. "No! At least, I don't think so. I'm just worried about Sirius. I've seen him like this before… and it ended… badly."
Remus frowned. "Well… we'll just have to keep him out of trouble, then, won't we?" He leaned in and distracted her with a kiss.
"Mmm. Thanks," she said, as he pulled away.
Remus grinned back. "Any time." He pressed another quick kiss to her lips. "I have to run, I promised Kettleburn I'd help him set up this morning. See you at lunch."
Sirius grabbed himself some toast, James shoveled the last of his breakfast into his mouth - a truly inhuman feat - and the three headed off to Care of Magical Creatures.
"You headed to the library for your free period this morning?" Lily asked.
Hermione nodded. "Did you want to come?"
Lily scrunched her nose. "I should, really," she sighed. "I still have to finish that essay for Ancient Runes… but I think I'll put it off until tonight. It'll be nice to have the room to myself for once."
Hermione empathized. In her previous life, she'd had lots of time alone — too much, sometimes. But now, she had so many friends and so many responsibilities that it sometimes felt a bit suffocating. She took her last sip of tea, gathered her things, and headed to the library.
Where Regulus was sitting, alone, in their spot.
Hermione's heart leapt into her throat. The library was empty. She could approach him. She could say… something. Anything. Something that he could show Voldemort. Something to show he was working on wriggling his way back into her life. Something to keep him safe. Something to connect with him again, if only for a bittersweet moment.
He glanced up. His dark eyes meeting hers. Hermione opened her mouth to say… Merlin knows what… and then the door opened behind her.
"Don't tell me you got lost in the library, Belanger. We all know you live here," Lucius sneered.
Hermione spun. There was a time and a place where that comment might have irritated her. It wasn't here. And it wasn't today. And it wasn't coming from the boy who had saved her from Peter just a month ago. Hermione smirked. "Please. I was just embracing a moment in which your glaringly bright hair wasn't messing up the view."
They'd spent the last month throwing these lame insults at one another. And Hermione actually sort of enjoyed it. It was also good for keeping up her ability to hold her emotional masks in place.
Narcissa's gaze flicked from Hermione back to Lucius. The Slytherin girl's expression revealed nothing, but Hermione assumed she was wondering what in the hell all this nonsense was about. Hermione wished she could tell her. Wished she could scream into both their faces that this didn't have to be their lives.
Instead she sneered in Lucius' direction and stalked off toward the section on lunar magic.
"I'm spoken for, Belanger," Lucius called after her. "Please stare at someone else."
Hermione laughed silently to herself and then dived into her research. She had studied the Wolfsbane potion a little in third year when Harry had expressed concern about Snape making Remus a "smoking poison." She'd already suspected Remus was a werewolf, of course, and Wolfsbane had been the obvious suspect.
Still, trying to recreate it after only some brief theoretical perusal? Tricky. Menacingly. She hoped that learning a little more about lunar magic and its relation to potions, and the werewolf transformation, might help. She wished, more than anything, that she could enlist Severus' help. But he'd never help, not after Sirius' "prank" in fifth year, not even if he could.
Hermione rested her forehead against the stacks and took a deep, steadying breath. Ron was right, she mused. I'm completely insane. Her course load was heavy. The war was an insane weight on her shoulders. She worried too much, too often. She had nightmares every night, slept very poorly, and was always exhausted. Sometimes, though she hadn't told anyone yet, she would get flashbacks that gripped her in place until they were through with her. Fractured slices of the worst moments of her missions. Sounds and scents and pictures that left her breathless with fear.
For the first time ever, Hermione was desperately looking forward to the Christmas holidays. (And praying Voldemort would stay relatively quiet.)
To top it all off, this damned potions project was an insane undertaking. Slughorn hadn't tried to talk her out of it, exactly. He was clearly very much in favour of having his student do something so incredible. But even he couldn't hide the skepticism beneath his daydreams of prestige.
She remembered most of the ingredients. But her third year understanding of potions had been sketchy, at best, and so she hadn't had much of a schema to which to attach a lot of the directions. She couldn't even remember the order or amounts of the ingredients she did remember, and she knew there was one ingredient missing from her list. Something that was just on the edge of her memory every time, but always managed to elude her. It was driving her a bit mad.
Or maybe that was a cumulative effect.
She slammed the lunar magic tome shut and stalked off towards the magical creatures section. Perhaps there was something she'd missed there. She turned down the dimly lit aisle, her mind sifting through everything she knew about everything that could even possibly maybe be related to the Wolfsbane potion, and immediately crashed into Regulus.
His seeker reflexes flashed his hand out to stop her from falling almost before she realized she was.
"Sorry! And thanks!" she said awkwardly, and he released his grip on her arm.
His eyes were dark and impenetrable as usual. "You're welcome."
Hermione's thoughts were a rush. This was it. She needed to say something. Something he could show Voldemort when he asked about his progress. Something to keep him safe just a little longer - until she could come up with a real plan.
He found the book he was looking for on the shelf and turned to leave.
"Wait!" Hermione practically shouted.
He faced her, an eyebrow lifted, but a warning in his gaze.
"I— I miss you," Hermione said, letting a trace of genuine longing into her voice. "I know we can't— We're on opposite sides now, and obviously we can't be friends. But I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I don't hate you. I never will."
She had to make it sound like she was the one refusing his friendship. She had to make it seem like maybe he had approached her before.
"I don't want you to think that we can't be friends because of that. I wanted you to know it's just… it's the war. That's it. That's why. I mean, you chose your side. The wrong side. So don't ask. Stop trying to be my friend, Regulus. Because I just can't stand it all."
While Regulus stood there, unreadable as always, but clearly trying to work out what she was doing, Hermione ducked her head as if to hide tears, grabbed a random book from a nearby shelf and then rushed away.
As she sat at her table, Lucius caught her eye. She winked, clearly startling him, and then covered with a hateful frown and returned to her research.
That night, Hermione dragged Sirius to the Room of Requirement, which looked identical to the Gryffindor Common Room. She eased down into the couch in front of the fire, conjuring hot chocolate, and gesturing to the seat beside her.
"What's up, Mya?" Sirius asked, concern in his eyes. He accepted his mug and sat beside her - a little further away than he might have before she and Remus happened.
"I miss you, mostly," Hermione said honestly. "We used to spend time together all the time. But now, I'm so busy, and there's Remus, and… I don't know. Everything feels different."
Sirius smiled and leveled his dark eyes at her. "And?"
Hermione laughed. "And… I'm worried about you. I want you to remember that we talk about things. That this honesty thing goes both ways."
Sirius nodded, frowning as his fingers tracing the lip of his mug. "Alright, Miss Perceptive. But then I want to hear about what's going on with you." He hesitated. "How did you know anything was wrong?"
She rolled her eyes. "The complete 180. Yesterday you were angry and sullen. Today, you're exuberant and upbeat. I've seen you do that before."
"In the future?"
"In the original timeline," Hermione corrected reflexively, intensely. "That place… that's not our future."
"Yeah, well, it did sound pretty shitty, come to think of it," he joked. "Azkaban's not much of a vacation destination."
Hermione smiled weakly. At least she knew that wasn't going to happen. Peter wasn't here to betray Lily and James. To betray Sirius.
"What happened? In the original timeline."
"To make you so… manic?"
Sirius nodded.
Hermione sighed and thought back. "You were confined to Grimmauld. You hated it. Just you and Kreacher and whatever Order members happened to filter through. You were angry, but beneath that, I think you were also incredibly sad. You were worried for Harry - your Godson, you know. Voldemort was planning something, and he was doing something to Harry, messing with his head. You were worried and frustrated that you weren't allowed to do anything except hide away in the one place you didn't want to be."
"That sounds like a bloody nightmare," he confirmed.
"Then, we all came for Christmas. Me and Harry and the Weasleys—"
"Wait, you mean Molly and Arthur?"
Hermione smiled. "Yes. And the twins - they'll be born next April - and their daughter. You liked them. They were like family to all of us."
"Huh," Sirius said, somewhat indifferently, "Fancy that."
"You'll see," she promised. "Once you join the Order you'll start to see. The twins actually found the Marauder's Map, you know, once they came to Hogwarts. They were brilliant, and absolute mischief makers."
Sirius chuckled. "Well, that does warm the cockles of my heart."
"Anyway… you went from sullen and angsty to… the life of the party. More Sirius than Sirius Black had ever been before. But it was fake. It was empty. It was… it was desperate. The last gasp of a man trying to hold onto something, anything…" she trailed off, meeting his gaze. "Tell me what's going on in there."
Sirius rubbed his face tiredly. "It's a lot of things. Maybe everything. It's… It's James' parents being gone - our first Christmas without them… I've spent Christmas there every year since first, except last year.
"It's… Peter attacking you, and not being able to do anything about it. It's this whole damned war," his voice was growing louder, anger seeping into it. "Fighting Death Eaters who torture people for fun. Fighting an all-powerful megalomaniac with a grand master plan for destruction. Fighting people we go to school with – just… perfectly ordinary people who decided killing people might be fun! What the fuck are we supposed to do against that sort of… of evil?
"It's seeing Regulus walking down the hall, proud and pureblood, knowing what's on his arm. Knowing the kind of scum he's become… wondering if I could have saved him." His eyes burned into hers. "Mya, what if I could have saved him?"
Hermione silently reached out and laced her fingers through his.
"It's you, Mya," he went on, more softly. "I worry about you almost as much as you worry about everyone else. Every time you disappear for a while, I watch the map, making sure you're here, making sure you're not off on a mission. Every time I see you space out, and I know you're not really here, I worry. And… I don't know how to be around you now, with Remus. I don't know how I'm supposed to fit into your life."
Hermione frowned and looked, almost sternly, into his eyes. "Sirius, you are my best friend. End of story. No one changes anything about that. Derrick didn't—"
"Derrick was an arse," he interjected.
Hermione laughed. "He was not. But the point is, he didn't change us. And neither should Remus. Remus gets it. And if he doesn't…" She hesitated. "If he doesn't then he should be seeing someone else."
Sirius' eyebrow lifted as he interpreted her reluctant words. "Mya's in loooove."
Hermione shifted uncomfortably and Sirius' smirk dropped.
"You really are, aren't you?" he asked, almost amazed.
"I don't know," Hermione mumbled.
But Sirius just eyed her. "Yes you do," he said, with such finality, such certainty, that Hermione couldn't even come up with anything to say in response.
"Well, I'm glad," he said seriously. "Remus needs someone to love him, to show him he's really truly loveable, fur and fangs and all. And you need something to think about that isn't, you know, death-related."
That pulled a surprised laugh out of Hermione.
Sirius grinned. "We're going to be alright, Mya," he said, easing his arm around her. "Aren't we?"
Hermione leaned into him, into this place that felt like home. "That's the plan."
They stayed like that for a long time, chatting idly, or resting in comfortable silence.
"Oh shit, it's past curfew," Sirius realized suddenly.
Hermione eyed the Room of Requirement. "I don't suppose you could give us a way to get to Gryffindor Tower undetected?" she said aloud to the room.
Nothing happened, and she sighed. "Well, I guess—"
A portrait of an elderly man swung open beside the fireplace. "Come along then, you miscreants," the man said. "Get ye to bed! Study hard! Platitudes, platitudes, and further platitudes."
Sirius stared at Hermione, wide-eyed.
"Don't even," Hermione said firmly.
"But, Mya! Don't you see the potential here! This could be like… like a secret hub to the entire castle."
Hermione rolled her eyes and rose from the couch. "You already have the cloak and the map. What more advantage do you three really need? Slughorn is probably still living in fear after you and James switched the class supply of dried dittany for mandrake leaves—"
She froze. Mandrake leaves. "I need to get back to my potions research. Right now."
Sirius shook his head almost fondly. "Far be it for me to get in the way of Hermione Belanger's research. My lady," he offered an arm, and Hermione took it with a smile.
"I've missed this," she said, feeling the contentment seep into the depths of her heart.
Sirius smiled in a way that said he did too. "Me, too, love. Me, too."
The holidays arrived at a dizzying speed. Hermione, James, and Sirius had decided early to stay at Hogwarts. And after several communications between Remus, his parents, and Albus, Remus had been allowed to stay as well. They were the only ones in Gryffindor who weren't going home for Christmas. Parents wanted their children home with them. They weren't going to squander time together when so much was uncertain.
Still, Hermione stepped off the train with Lily and the others on December 17th, when it arrived in London.
"Thank you so much for doing this," Lily said quietly, as they crossed the platform to meet her parents.
Hermione smiled faintly. From what she remembered, Lily's parents were going to die, sometime in the next couple of years… normal Muggle deaths, if the accounts were true. They were unlikely to be hit by Death Eaters. Unlikely to be saved by whatever measures she took today. But she didn't tell Lily this. "Anything I can do to keep your family safe."
Lily smiled her thanks and scanned the platform. "Oh, there they are!"
A cheerful-looking couple, neither old nor young, stood smiling brightly and waving near the entrance to the platform. Mrs. Evans looked just like her daughter, almost uncannily. Mr. Evans had brown hair, with a beard that glinted with flashes of red when the light hit it just right. His eyes were a stunning blue and were lit with joy at seeing his daughter home for the holidays.
Hermione stood back as Lily was pulled into warm and loving hugs, doing her best to keep tears from her eyes as her heart wrestled with the moment. If only these people could have raised Harry. These warm and wonderful people. If only he could have known them. She brushed aside the thought. Harry, I promise to do my best.
"Mum, Dad, this is Hermione!" Lily said, pulling away and gesturing toward her.
"Oh, Hermione, we've heard so much about you!" Lily's mum said, with a brilliant smile.
"It's so good to finally put a face to the name," her dad smiled.
"Thank you both. It's really wonderful to meet you," Hermione said honestly.
They began walking toward the car, Lily chatting easily about this and that. Once they were strapped in - Merlin does it ever feel weird to be in a car again - Lily's mother turned round in the passenger seat.
"Lily was a bit vague in her letter," she said, "But she mentioned you would just be visiting for the afternoon?"
Hermione met Lily's gaze, and Lily shook her head to say, no, her parents didn't know anything about the war.
"Yes, ma'am," Hermione said cheerfully. "I'll be apparating back to the school this evening."
The rest of the drive, and much of the afternoon, was spent answering all Lily's parents' curiosities about their schooling, the dance, and the Wizarding World at large. (Petunia, having married Vernon and moved out, was joyfully absent.)
As dinner wrapped up, Hermione nudged Lily beneath the table.
Lily swallowed her bite, and Hermione could see the reluctance in her face. She could almost hear how her heart must be racing with nervousness.
"Mum. Dad. Hermione didn't come just so you could meet her," she said slowly. "We… we wanted to talk to you about something."
Catching the tone in her voice, Lily's parents were immediately attentive. Their forks and knives resting on their plates. All of their focus on their daughter. "Is something the matter, Lily?" her mother asked, worriedly. Her father was frowning with concern.
Lily took a deep, steadying inhale, and let it out slowly. "Hermione is here to cast magic that will keep you safe," she said.
Her parents looked alarmed. As they should. Hermione decided she ought to take over from there.
"Safe from what?" Lily's father asked, trying to keep his tone calm.
"I wonder, Mr and Mrs Evans, whether you've noticed anything… strange… in the papers this year?" Hermione asked gently.
They exchanged looks. "Well… Certainly 1977 has been a bit…"
"Catastrophic?" Hermione supplied. They were silent, processing. "I read the Muggle papers. I know what they've been saying. And the cover ups are mediocre at best. Wolf attacks in the middle of London. Earthquakes no one felt. Tornadoes no one saw. Gas leaks. Disappearances. This year has been one tragedy after another in the Muggle world."
"What are you saying?" Mrs. Evans asked almost fearfully. "That this is… this is from the magical world?"
"Yes," Hermione said simply. "And I'll explain it all in just a moment. But first I want you to understand that Hogwarts is the single safest place in all of England. Lily and the other students… we're in the safest place there is. Our Headmaster is the most powerful Wizard in Europe, possibly the world, and what's going on right now… Hogwarts is basically a safehouse from it all."
Hermione gave them a moment to process, their faces a mixture of confusion, and fear. She glanced at Lily, who was biting her lip and watching her parents.
"That's why Hermione's here," she said in a rush. "To keep you two safe too. Just in case it reaches here. Just in case."
"What is 'it'?" her father demanded finally. "What's going on here?"
Hermione looked from Lily to her parents. "I've practiced this conversation many times," Hermione said quietly. "It was one I always meant to have with my own parents… but I spent too long practicing, and in the end, I was too late." She cast around for the right words. "There's no easy way to have this conversation. It's insanity. And as Muggles, it's hard to envision what it really means. But the 'it' we're talking about here is a war, Mr and Mrs Evans."
"Excuse me?" Mrs Evans exclaimed. "A war?"
"What does that even mean?" Mr Evans asked almost angrily.
And so Hermione sat and she answered all their questions. She explained about Voldemort and the Death Eaters. About Mudbloods and Purebloods. About supremacy and darkness. She explained about the Dark Mark above houses. About masked and cloaked villains with hideous magics. She explained about the Unforgiveables. She explained about the kidnappings, though she didn't dare tell them about Inferi. And then finally, when there were no more questions to ask, she went outside and cast what protective enchantments she could.
"Explain for me again what these spells will do?" Mrs Evans asked.
"I've set a sort of warding out around the property and into the street. It prevents anyone from apparating into the warded space. It also prevents magic - but not magical persons - from passing through it. Sort of like an enormous shield around your home. It's powerful magic. Strong magic. It won't hold against Voldemort himself, but he's unlikely to make an appearance. I've also tied into it a charm that will alert me if any witch or wizard tries to breech it. There are also some extra wards at the intersections to either side. If anyone crosses them, I will know."
"Why you?" Mr Evans asked, after having been silent for quite a long while. "Why isn't a teacher or a… a Wizarding Police person coming? Why you?"
"Dad!" Lily chided.
"No, it's a fair question," Hermione said. "The Order and the Ministry are keeping tabs on the Muggle community. The response is quite quick. But they aren't warding specific homes, unless there is particular reason to think that someone in that household will be an intentional target. Lily isn't anybody to Voldemort, and as long as that's the case, you are all safe from that sort of attention." She smiled as encouragingly as she could. "In the meantime, Lily was feeling worried, and so was I."
"But surely the wards ought to be keyed to an… an adult. Someone who is in charge of these things," he protested.
Lily opened her mouth. "Hermione is—"
Hermione quickly cut her off. "The adopted daughter of the Headmaster himself. If the alarms go off, I have ways to let him know immediately. I promise you." She didn't think it wise to let Lily's parents know she was in the Order. She was still just reeling in relief at the fact that it hadn't occurred to them that Lily might want to join up and fight.
A short while later, Lily walked Hermione to the edges of the apparition warding. "I don't know how to thank you," she said. "I feel so much better. And you were so kind with them, explaining everything, and being patient and honest without being too scary. I had no idea how to talk to them about all this."
Hermione hugged Lily tightly. "I'm happy to help, silly."
Lily hugged her closer still. "I'm so sorry about your parents, Hermione."
Hermione could hear the unshed tears in her friend's voice, and they tugged at her own. "Me, too," she whispered.
After a long moment, they pulled apart and bid their goodbyes and Hermione apparated away. She made a quick stop at Privet Drive, where she protected Lily's godawful sister in the same way—though without any conversing—, and then back to the castle via the Hog's Head. When she finally stepped through Hogwarts' main entrance, she was feeling better than she had in a while. She had done something good. Had done something preventative instead of reactive; something that would keep someone safe. She hoped it would be enough.