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Chapter Thirteen: Teaspoons

The first Quidditch match of the season was in a couple hours which meant that the great hall was teeming with spirited students. Hermione walked in wearing a pair of flair denims and her jumper that James had made her. It came down to mid-thigh and made her look awful frumpy, but she had never been more happy. Her hair was being held up in a bun by her wand and for the first time in her life she was mildly excited to be attending a match.

It was Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff, so the students were a sea of yellow and burgundy. When Hermione sat down James was beaming at her in his gear across the table.

"I knew you'd love it!"

Sirius was smirking next to James when he said, "I am getting you a 'Black's #1 fan' shirt for Christmas."

Hermione scoffed, "I won't wear it."

Just then Marlene McKinnon sat down next to Sirius and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

"Will I be getting one also, Sirius?"

Hermione avoided looking at them by shoveling some food onto a plate.

"Anything for you, McKinnon." He winked at her, and Hermione got this odd sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Sirius was a shameless flirt, but with Marlene it seemed different.

Hermione was staring at her plate with a frown on her face when she felt Remus nudge her in the side.

"Not a big Quidditch fan, Hermione?"

"Not really. Harry and Ron were huge fans though."

Hermione smiled sadly at her plate. She hadn't gotten around to telling Remus who exactly Harry and Ron were, and she still wasn't sure if she wanted to.

I wouldn't, Mione.

Hermione flinched and sought out Sirius's eyes, but he was leaning towards Marlene and whispering something in her ear that had the girl wearing a devilish expression. She quickly averted her eyes.

Remus watched all of this from his spot next to Hermione.

He cleared his throat and before he could stop himself asked quietly, "Sit with me?"

He cursed himself when Hermione's head shot up, and she gave him a confused look. "What do you mean, Remus? I'm already sitting with you."

Remus's entire face turned pink. He cleared his throat and whispered, "I meant at the match."

He got even warmer when Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed at him. Merlin, this was mortifying.

"Of course, I'll sit with you at the match, Remus." Remus's eyes widened and a small goofy smile took over his face.

"Wait, really?"

Hermione gave him a look like he was idiot. "Did you really think I wouldn't?"

Remus was still smiling goofily when he turned back to his plate. Sirius and James had both watched the interaction with narrowed eyes. James launched a kick at Remus's shins and the boy did his best not to yelp.

"Oi! What the hell was that for?"

James gave him his worst death glare and whispered angrily, "Don't try anything, Moony."

Then he ruined the entire intimidation act by doing the universal sign for 'I'm watching you'. Hermione blushed at that and reached over to smack James on the head.

"I can take care of myself, James!"

Sirius scoffed and Hermione turned towards him with a menacing look.

"Something to say, Sirius?" Sirius gave her a challenging look and leaned forward.

"We all know that isn't true, kitten. You can't even sleep properly on your own."

He said it quietly, but all of the Marauders and Hermione heard him clearly.

Sirius regretted saying it as soon as he saw the hurt expression that took over her face. He hadn't put any thought into what he was saying, and not for the first time in his life he'd mucked everything up.

Hermione blinked rapidly to stop the tears that sprang to her eyes. Why was it that Sirius was so good at both comforting her and hurting her?

He was about to retract what he'd said before she was moving.

She pushed her plate away and stood up. She ignored all of the boys mixed reactions and stared at the ground.

"I'll meet you before the match, Remus," her voice broke on his name, but she was too busy fleeing the room to see anyone's expressions.

"Wait, Hermione!" Remus tried, but she ignored him. Remus turned towards Sirius and his eyes flashed amber. "Why the fuck did you say that, Sirius!"

Sirius sighed and put his head in his hands.

"Pads, there literally isn't anything worse you could have said in that moment," James said quietly. He was frowning and shaking his head. If there was anything Hermione hated most, it was being compared to a helpless damsel in any means. James had learned that the hard way, and now it appeared to be Sirius's turn.

"I just don't think before I speak sometimes!" Sirius sounded decidedly miserable, so James gave him a quick pat on the back.

"Don't you think all the time would be more accurate?" Peter asked.

"Pete, not you too!" Sirius groaned.

Peter shrank a little into the bench, "Well, you have to admit, what you said was pretty bad, Sirius."

Sirius took his head out of his hands to bang it against the table. "Fuck!"

"I'm going to go find her," said Remus. He gave Sirius one final glare before following in Hermione's steps and leaving the great hall.

Hermione spent a couple minutes in the bathroom splashing water on her face before deciding to just go lay down until she needed to meet Remus.

She had been walking down the first floor corridor towards the stairs when someone stepped directly in her path.

"Oi! I found the new Gryffindor Mudblood." Hermione shivered and looked up into the face of an older boy in Slytherin green. He had a slimy voice and looked vaguely familiar. "You're a bit of a looker in a plain, mousy way." The comment made Hermione nauseous.

"She's awfully small for a fifth year, don't you think?" said a different voice from behind her.

The boy in front of her grabbed at a piece of her jumper and pulled on it so that she stumbled closer to him. "What's this rubbish? Potter's Number One Fan?" He practically spat out the words.

Hermione tried to pull away, but he just held on tighter. She threw her hand up for her wand, but whoever was standing behind her was thinking faster than her. Her hair fell down her back, and that's when she finally let herself start to panic. She heard her wand clatter to the ground from somewhere behind her.

She threw one fist forward, and it connected with the guy in front of her's stomach.

"Bloody hell!" He fell forward slightly, but didn't let her go. Someone grabbed her hair, and that's when she realized that there were at least three of them.

"Let me go!"

"We got ourselves a fiery little minx, Yaxley!"

Hermione gasped. She'd encountered Yaxley once on the run and multiple times in the Manor. She remembered dreading seeing his greasy face. He was disturbed as an adult, and now he was standing before her barely of age and just as terrifying as before. This was not good. She tried to throw another punch, but one of them grabbed at her wrists and twisted them painfully behind her back. Then she was being slammed against the stone wall. Her head hit the stone with a resounding thud, and her vision disappeared momentarily. She had to say something to stop them before it went too far.

"Someone's going to come down this corridor, soon!"

One of them reached up and covered her mouth.

"Scream and this will end much worse for you, Mudblood."

Hermione bit down on the fingers covering her mouth. He cursed and yanked his hand away, and Hermione could tasted blood in her mouth.

Whoever was holding her hair gave a violet tug, and suddenly she was staring into Yaxley's crazed eyes.

"We're going to have fun with you."

One of their hands was on her waist and inching up. She tried to pull away again, but it was no use.

Hermione spat at him and felt almost smug when she saw the spit hit him just below his eye with a mixture of blood and saliva. The smugness disappeared when he started to pull her jumper up. She started to fight them even more aggressively, but they were all significantly larger than her. Her vision was blurred and her head was pounding, but she didn't want to think about what would happen to her if she stopped fighting them.

"Let me go!"

Yaxley growled at her and was about to say something when he was interrupted by someone yelling from the opposite end of the corridor.

"Hey! Get away from her!"

Remus.

Hermione tried to turn towards him, but someone still had her wrists and hair in their grip. Then the hands were being ripped violently from her, and she fell to the ground. She vaguely registered the sound of multiple footsteps running down the hall.

She was trembling when Remus fell to the ground next to her. He reached up and carefully reached a hand into the curls at the back of her head. She was getting very dizzy.

"Hermione?"

Her eyes were darting around the floor, "My wand." She managed to say, but it came out as a gasp.

"I have it."

Remus pulled his hand out of her hair to grab the wand sitting next to him. He paused when he saw the blood on his fingers. It was then that the metallic smell assaulted his nose.

"You're bleeding!" He reached for the back of her head again, but she flinched away.

"No, please don't!"

She squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel their hands all over her. She let out a choked sob.

"Hermione?"

"I can feel them." Her voice was shaking.

"Feel what? Hermione I need to take you to the hospital wing." Remus watched helplessly as Hermione became hysterical. Her eyes were glazed over like they used to get when she'd wake up from her nightmares. He tried to reach for her, but she scrambled away.

"Don't touch me!"

Remus was panicking. He wasn't good with hysterical Hermione. The only person who was good with hysterical Hermione was Sirius and Sirius was probably presently flirting with Marlene in the Great Hall. On top of that, Remus wasn't even sure she'd want to see Sirius after what he had said at breakfast. He was racking his brain for what to do when he heard laughter from down the corridor.

"Hermione someone is coming let me take you to Madame Pomfrey!" He reached for her again, but stopped when she flinched. "Please, Hermione!"

"Remus?" Someone asked from behind him.

He turned and sighed in relief at the sight of Lily and Dorcas.

"Is Hermione okay? What happened?" He had blood on his hands and hermione was crouched against the wall. He didn't have time to think about what they looked like. Hermione's cries could be heard in the background.

"Lily! Go get James and Sirius!" When Lily hesitated he yelled, "Go!"

He turned back around and inched as close as he could to Hermione without her pulling away.

"It's okay. Lily is getting James." He was saying as many soothing things as he could think, but nothing seemed to be working.

Remus could hear people running down the corridor. Suddenly James and Sirius were crouching down on both sides of Remus.

"They're gone, okay? No one else is going to hurt you," Remus tried again.

Hermione's forehead was resting on her knees. "I can still feel them!" Her words were broken up by sobs.

"What happened? What can you feel Hermione?" James asked.

"Their…their hands." Remus wanted to vomit. He'd barely waited five minutes to come look for her after she'd left breakfast. How could this have happened?

James jumped forward and reached for her face. "Hermione?"

Hermione wouldn't open her eyes, but she'd stopped sobbing and was now just sniffling.

"James?" When she whispered this James reached out for her hands.

"It's me. I'm going to bring you to the hospital wing, okay?" He waited until she nodded to carefully pull her into his arms and stand up.

"James?"

"Yeah?"

She was gripping the front of his shirt with her eyes squeezed tight. Remus and Sirius started walking on both sides of James.

"Please don't tell, Sirius."

When she said that all three boys stopped walking. James looked over at Sirius who was frowning at the ground.

"Is this about what he said earlier?"

She nodded against his shirt and his lips thinned.

"Okay."

"Promise?" James gave Sirius a pained look before continuing towards the Hospital wing.

"Yeah…"

When they finally made it the boys stood to the side as Pomfrey bustled about and coaxed potions down Hermione's throat that put her to sleep.

When she was done with that and had cleaned and closed the wound on the back of Hermione's head she turned her stern expression towards the boys.

"Explain!"

James and Sirius looked towards Remus, who sighed.

"I wasn't there for all of it. When I found her Yaxley, Crabbe, and Nott had her against the wall. They had taken her wand."

Sirius growled and said, "I'm going to kill them!"

"Had her against the wall?" Asked Pomfrey.

"They had her… pinned. I don't know what they were going to do."

In all actuality he had a pretty good idea about what they were planning on doing before he'd shown up. It must've shown on his face because the healer adopted a very sad expression and James and Sirius clenched their fists.

"You'll have to speak with Dumbledore later, Mr. Lupin. As for you two, don't you have a match to get to?"

"But what about-"

"It's okay, guys. I'll stay with her," said Remus. He went closer to the bed and pulled up a chair. "When she wakes up she probably won't want all of us crowding her anyway." Remus carefully avoided eye-contact with Sirius, but Sirius knew he was only talking about him.

"Yeah, okay," whispered James who then went and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead before grabbing Sirius's elbow and dragging him out of the hospital wing. "We'll be back as soon as the match is over."

Remus surveyed Hermione and carefully took one of her hands in his.

"Madame Pomfrey?"

She hummed in acknowledgement.

"Do you know… Well…"

"Just spit it out, Mr. Lupin."

Remus sighed. "Do you know if… when the death eaters… did they ever?"

He couldn't force the words out, but she seemed to understand what he was asking anyway. The woman sighed and set down the viles she'd been collecting.

"There was no medical evidence of it."

Remus let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

After that Madame Pomfrey quickly gathered everything and began to make her way out.

"She'll be up in a couple hours. I'll allow you to stay, but just because I believe waking to a friendly face would be beneficial."

She shut the curtain around the bed, and Remus was left to his own devices. He tightened his hold on her hand and laid his head on the edge of the bed. He was thoroughly exhausted and it was barely ten in the morning. He tried to swallow down his guilt about not getting there sooner, but it kept resurfacing.

He'd expected to find a crying or angry Hermione when he'd gone after her after what Sirius said, and instead he'd found her shoved against a wall surrounded by three of the worst guys here.

He fell asleep trying not to think about what would've happened if he had been just a few minutes later.

Hermione woke up to someone's cheek on her hand and a pounding headache.

She groaned and rolled on to her side and saw that resting on her hand was a sleeping Remus. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget about what had happened just a couple of hours ago.

She'd gotten soft. Months without true and immediate danger had made it almost worse this time. She hadn't been expecting it, and she certainly hadn't expected to see Yaxley. She needed to make a list of every Death Eater currently in Hogwarts, so she wouldn't get trapped like that.

Remus woke up when Hermione started squeezing his hand so hard he was losing feeling. He pulled his head up, and her eyes flew open.

"Shh! Hermione, it's just me."

She closed her eyes and said quietly, "I know."

She was embarrassed. Just this morning Sirius had made that comment about Hermione not being able to take care of herself, and now here she was in the hospital wing.

"I'm sorry. I should've been more careful. I should've been able to protect myself."

Remus's eyes widened in shock. "Why on earth are you apologizing for being attacked?"

She ignored her dizziness and sat up. "Sirius is right, Remus! I can't take care of myself!"

He shook his head and whispered, "Sirius is an idiot who doesn't always think before he speaks."

"I need you guys. I don't want to need you guys." Remus got a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach when she said those words.

"Well, I personally think it's nice to have someone depend on me. No one has ever needed me before."

Remus always found himself being way more honest with Hermione than anyone he'd ever met. This admittance made him turn the shade of pink that was quickly becoming familiar to Hermione.

"Really?" She sounded more timid than he'd ever heard her, so he nodded quickly.

"Really. Plus, Sirius just hasn't realized how much we need you too."

Hermione frowned. Telling Remus and Lily where she'd come from had given her some relief, but the reminder that everyone depended on her was most unwelcome. Remus squeezed her hand right as the curtain slid open and Madame Pomfrey bustled in.

"Hello, dear! How are you feeling?"

Hermione sat up straighter and said, "I'm fine."

"How is your head feeling?"

"It aches a bit."

Madame Pomfrey nodded and gave her a potion before leaving and returning with two trays of food.

"Best to get some food in you. You still have some weight to gain." Pomfrey turned her gaze on Remus and remarked, "You as well, Mr. Lupin."

Hermione snorted and Remus gave her a mock glare.

"You have to admit… you are rather skinny, Remus."

Remus frowned down at himself. "I prefer the term lanky."

The trays of food that Madame Pomfrey had left them were both bursting, and they'd barely put a dent in it when the curtain flew open again, but this time to the sight of a sweaty Sirius and James.

They were still wearing their Quidditch jerseys and had their bags of gear over their shoulders.

"Food!" James yelled before pushing Hermione closer to the side of the bed that Remus was on and squishing in next to her. Before she could even protest he'd taken her fork from her hand and was shoveling her food in his mouth.

Hermione scowled at him and crossed her arms indignantly.

"Hey! I have barely had anything."

James ignored her and said, "We won! In case you were wondering."

Hermione actually smiled at that. "That's wonderful, James."

He smiled and sheepishly handed her fork back. "I forgot you didn't eat breakfast."

At this Hermione looked up at Sirius who was still standing at the end of her bed. He was rubbing the back of his neck and staring determinately at the floor.

There was almost nothing Sirius hated more than having to apologize. He had what some might define as 'pride issues,' which led to a mental block when it came to admitting he'd done anything wrong. But he could say without any doubt that the worst feeling he'd ever felt thus far in his life, was when he listened to Hermione beg James not to tell him that she had been hurt. He was irrevocably drawn to Hermione Granger, and hearing her ask to leave him out of something had hurt him worse than being permanently blasted off his own family tree. So he sucked up his pride and said as loudly as he could muster, "I'm sorry about what I said, Hermione."

She waited until he looked up at her to say, "I forgive you." Then she looked down at her food and smirked to herself when she said, "It's not your fault you have the emotional range of a teaspoon."

Remus snorted, but Sirius just looked confused. "Oi! What's that supposed to mean!"

Hermione swallowed her bite of potatoes and said, "It means you're an idiot, but I forgive you anyway."

Sirius smiled then. "Well in that case, I accept your forgiveness."

She rolled her eyes. "That's not how forgiveness works, you arse."

Sirius threw himself on the end of the bed and swiped Remus's plate. "Now that that's out of the way, I'm starved."

Remus punched him in the arm and mumbled, "Git."

They spent the rest of their meal laughing and stealing food from each other. Hermione welcomed the brief reprieve from her own thoughts.

AN: A short but dense chapter. Couldn't resist throwing the classic Hermione quote in there. Thanks for the follows and reviews!