Sirius voters had an overwhelming turnout after the last chapter and he's now come from behind to take the lead, putting the totals thus: Sirius: 9, Remus: 7, and for those hoping for a threesome: 2. I keep the vote updated on my bio if you're ever wondering.

Oh! And oodles of love to all of you who have so faithfully reviewed. There should be two more posts (at least) put up over the weekend. Next chapter – training, hooah!

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Once again, Hermione was up bright and early the next day putting the finishing touches on the Astronomy chart due next week. She sipped the steaming cup of coffee the house elves had sent up and smiled at the scaled taste, and then took note of the time. Packing all her parchments neatly back into her bag along with her book she went to go wake Lily, the only girl in their dorm still asleep.

"Lily," Hermione called, shaking the redhead gently. "Lily, wake up."

There was a sighing yawn from the far side of the bed and Lily rolled over to face her – green eyes blinking steadily awake. "Morning," she yawned.

Hermione, adjusting the strap of her satchel, stepped back so Lily could swing her legs over the side of the bed and sit up. She rubbed her eyes tiredly as she stretched and yawned again. Pathetic.

Hermione rolled her eyes at her knew friend and started for the door. "I'm going to go wake the boys."

"WHAT?!"

She was certainly wide awake now.

"I'm going to go wake the boys," Hermione repeated.

"Hermione!" Lily stammered. "You can't – you can't do that!"

Honey colored eyes rolled. "It's not like they'll get up on their own, Lily."

"But it's the boy's dormitory," Lily persisted.

She was surprised when Hermione actually laughed. "You're a bit odd, aren't you?"

"Me?" Lily's haw dropped. "You're the odd one."

"Oh, come off it," Hermione snorted. "Who cares if they're guys – I've been waking Harry and Ron up for years. Now do you want to come help, or not?"

Lily looked torn. Apparently, they were a lot more proper in the 1970's – Hermione could care less about going up to boy's dormitory every morning. She'd learned very quickly that when they had double Potions every morning, Harry and Ron were going to lose Gryffindor a lot of points if they kept sleeping in.

"Maybe if you're lucky, James'll have his shirt off," she called over her shoulder as she headed out.

Lily was ready in two minutes flat.

When they knocked, there was a long moment where there was no sound. And then, a loud thump! followed by a string of curses was heard through the door until it was opened by a bleary eyed Ron.

"Tcha!" Hermione tsked, taking one look at him. "You look awful."

"Morning, Her—"His own yawn cut him off, mid-word. "—mione."

He caught sight of Lily and craned his neck to look over Hermione, where the redhead was hiding. "Oh," he yawned again. "Mornin', Lil."

She waved weakly.

"Have at 'em..." He mumbled and stepped aside so they could enter the room.

In a gesture of sympathy she handed him her coffee as she passed and his tired face immediately lit up. While he gulped down her drink, Hermione moved on to Harry, Lily clinging to the back of her robes and doing her best not to look at much of anything.

"Harry..." she whispered, crouching by his ear. "Slytherin just won the House Cup."

He woke up screaming.

"Bloody hell, Hermione!" He yelled when he realized what she'd done; Hermione, on the other hand couldn't stop laughing. "Don't even joke!" he said.

"Ron's got coffee..."

He scowled. "You're forgiven..." he said, and pulled his shirt on over his head before heading over to steal the caffeine for himself.

"You can get James," Hermione told Lily, craning her head over her shoulder. "I'll get the other two bums." She was surprised all three had managed to sleep through Harry's screams of bloody murder.

Lily reluctantly pried herself off of Hermione's robes and headed towards the bed where James' head was hanging off the side. Hermione's next victim was Remus.

Dropping her satchel beside the bed she kneeled down alongside it and leaned forward onto the mattress. Shaking him gently as she had Lily, she murmured his name. "Remus. Breakfast."

His eyes opened slowly, and she waited until they focused on her. He jumped. "Herm—"she clapped a hand over Remus' mouth.

She was shushing him, but he was looking frantically through the covers for the shirt he'd neglected to leave on once again. Hermione's eyes rolled in exasperation and she grabbed his arm to make him stop.

"Stop being such a ninny," she admonished in a whisper. "I need you to help me wake up Sirius."

Slowly, she pulled her hand away from his mouth and grinned mischievously before placing a pillow in his hand and crawling away. She reappeared on the other side of Sirius' bed, pillow in hand, and motioned Remus closer. They both lifted their weapons of choice high into the air and, on Hermione's silent cue, brought them down on Sirius' sleeping form. They thumped him relentlessly from both sides until the disoriented Marauder rolled right off the bed.

The others had caught the tail-end of the show and were laughing loudly along with Remus and Hermione, who'd fallen back on Sirius' bed holding her stomach.

"Just the boxers today?" She laughed, when the battered Sirius used the bedpost to pull himself up off the floor.

He smiled slightly, posing for show. "I knew you were coming.

"Oh, I bet," she snorted, contemptuously, climbing back off the bed. She threw her pillow back on Ron's bed from where she'd snitched it and headed towards the large wardrobe.

Lily was sitting on James' bed as he wandered around, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing. With an exacerbated sigh, Hermione flung the wardrobe doors open and grabbed three fresh uniform sets.

She handed Remus his new shirt right off and laid the remaining pieces on his tousled bed. James' she handed to him before he wandered right out into the hallway. The last set she merely threw haphazardly onto Sirius' bed, and then turned to Ron and Harry who were still standing half-naked and huddled around the warmth of her coffee cup.

"Why are you so mean to me?" Sirius could be heard complaining as she pulled Ron's T-shirt right up over his head.

"Someone's got to bring that ego of yours down," she told him frankly. "Arm," she instructed to Ron and he slipped his arms into the shirt she held open for him.

She crossed around to his front and with deft, experienced fingers buttoned up the white dress shirt. After she knotted his tie properly and patted it down, she handed him his pants. "I trust you can put your own trousers on?"

He made a mocking expression, and Hermione turned away laughing to repeat the process on Harry. He handed back her coffee cup so that he could get his own trousers on and she was disappointed to find not a drop left.

"Thanks," she muttered and banished it with a flick of her wand.

Lily was dealing well with James, but when Hermione passed by the girl's face flamed bright red and she busied herself with making her boyfriend's collar just right. James on the other hand looked half catatonic. Remus was as well dressed as before and he gave her an overly exaggerated grin of pride that made Hermione chuckle softly.

Sirius was, as always, a mess.

He'd managed to tie his tie properly this time and all she had to do was straighten it. But his shirt was all scrunched and un-tucked. She smoothed it out by running her hands down his stomach and tugging on the hem. Making a quick circulatory loop, she tucked the excess material beneath the waistband of his trousers.

"I knew you couldn't keep your hands off me..." he smirked.

Hermione made sure to trod over his bare feet when she crossed back around to his front. Flicking off a few traces of dust, as he winced and flexed his toes experimentally to see if her Mary Janes had broken them, she took a step back to appraise her handiwork. She shrugged and headed for the door.

"Woah, woah, woah! What was that?!" Sirius demanded. He ran around in front of her, walking backwards so he could look at her. He mimicked her shrug. "That! What was that?"

"You look decent," she said with that some half-shrug.

"Decent?" He gasped incredulously. He stopped walking and Hermione had to stop as well to keep from bumping into him. "I'll have you know – I'm gorgeous."

Her tone was bland, "Now I know," and then she was stepping around him, Harry and Ron trailing after her demanding 'why the bloody hell classes had to start so bloody early'.

Remus and Lily followed quickly after, wanting to get some studying in while they ate breakfast, leaving James and Sirius alone in the now empty dormitory.

"Dude..."

Sirius growled in frustration.

"Dude..."

"I know!" Sirius shouted. James wasn't the least bit intimidated. In fact, the shorter boy was smiling as his friend turned away with scowl and ran a hand through his long hair.

"She's really getting to you, isn't she?" James gave him a sly look.

"Get that dopey grin off your face, Prongs."

"She is un-swayed by your charms, my good friend," was James' sage answer, bobbing his head knowingly like some Indian fortune teller.

"No, she's not."

"Oh, yes...yes, she is."

"Why is she un-swayed?!" Sirius demanded, throwing his hands up in defeat.

James seemed to be prepared for this and he wiggled his fingers to draw his friends attention before he began ticking off the reasons in a very 'its-so-obvious' sort of tone.

"She's intelligent, witty, powerful, and certainly no femme fatale," he waved the reasons, as represented by his fingers, in the face of his friend. "All things very much not your type."

"So you're saying I just go after slutty, dumb girls?" Sirius growled, threateningly.

"Yep." James had no hesitation.

Sirius swung at him, but the Seeker dodged with Quidditch honed reflexes and his agility proved too much for the Beater to compete with. Sirius has to settle for glaring irately at him.

"We should be grateful that she's been so nice to us," James told him. "And she's given us this chance to do something good and worthwhile—"

Sirius wasn't listening. "I'm going to get her to like me," he swore resolutely.

James crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head, "Don't you think you're trying a bit too hard?"

"Have a little faith in your best friend," Sirius said, easily waving off his friend's uncertainties.

"I think you're just pissing her off."

"Nah."

"SIRIUS! IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ARSE DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW, I'LL BLOODY WELL SEND YOU BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!!" Hermione's screams echoed all the way up the stairwell into the dormitory.

James gave him a look that clearly said I told you so.

"COMING DARLING!" He shouted back, earning him a weary expression from his best mate.

"You're an idiot," James told him.

As they both headed down the stairs and into the common room where the others were impatiently waiting Sirius could be heard grumbling "Why didn't she yell at you...".

--

--

They were learning about phoenixes in DADA that morning, and after an enthusiastic demonstration by Fawkes, they were made to go through their books and write down the defining characteristics of the species, while Fawkes preened on his stand at the front of the class.

Hermione's table was working quietly, their quills moving back and forth in steady lines across their separate sheets of parchment.

She was thinking of how to phrase the next line when there was a shrill squawk right beside her ear and she flinched away from it, knocking shoulders with Remus. A tiny crane flitted around her head, parchment wings flapping, and folded corners catching on her frizzy curls.

Apologizing quietly to Remus, she looked automatically to Ron, but the tall redhead was hunched over his book two desks up. Having to lean forward quite a ways to look around Sirius, Hermione did so – her head nearly laying atop the table – and checked Harry. He was grinning at her, books and parchments already tucked away.

Sticking out her tongue she sat back in her chair and promptly swatted the paper crane away. She was still annoyed that he'd stuck her with Sirius and Remus.

She focused, determinedly on her work, and almost succeeded in getting some of it done, when the suicidal bird careened headlong into the side of her face and got tangled in her curls. Throwing her quill down in exasperation, she tried to get the squirming origami animal extracted from her hair, but it only twisted itself deeper.

Another set of hands pulled hers away, and worked swiftly to separate the crane from her hair. She waited for the witty commentary, but none came and Hermione looked up at Sirius in surprise. He was holding it out to her by one wing, the enchanted parchment frantically flapping its free limb to keep aloft.

"You might as well read it," he said, the tell tale smirk finally appearing on his face. "Wouldn't want you losing an eye, pigeon."

She kicked him under the table for calling her that annoying nickname and snatched the note right out of his hand. She mumbled something to the extent of "whatever" and gave both wings a rather vicious tug in opposite directions. Sirius laughed and leaned back over his book.

The square-ish parchment, once unfolded, proved to have no words on it whatsoever. Instead, Harry had tried his (poor) hand at drawing, and in bright green ink was a crude picture that repeated the same three-second span of action.

A stick figure that looked very much like Hermione was holding stick hands with another stick figure that looked very much like Remus. At stick-figure Hermione's feet there was a jumble of lines she couldn't make out, but the head with its long hair was most undoubtedly Sirius. His stick arms were holding her robes, or leg, or something – she couldn't quite tell. Every three seconds the background would fill with loopy, mismatched hearts, stick-Remus would blush, and a dog's tail and ears would sprout from stick-Sirius.

"What's that?" Remus asked.

Hermione jumped, snatching the note with one hand and roughly stuffing it into her satchel. "Nothing," she said hastily, knowing her cheeks were turning an unattractive shade of pink. She kicked her book bag under her chair.

She hesitated to meet Remus' eyes, but when she finally did, found she needn't have bothered. He was looking past her. She turned in her seat to follow his gaze – seeing Sirius turned as well – and her disbelieving eyes landed on Harry.

His face was turning purple he was laughing so hard.

Holding his sides as if they would burst, he looked to be doing everything to keep the laughter in, but a few snickers were slipping through – probably the only thing keeping him from passing out.

"What are you doing?" She hissed.

Harry couldn't contain himself. He only got out "Your face..." before dissolving into forced back snickers.

At this, both Sirius and Remus, as well as Lily and James – who'd been staring at the purple face Harry with something akin to horror – turned to look at Hermione, who swore her skin was about to melt right of her face. Cursing Harry's first born child under her breath, she hunched down as far over her book as she could go and let her hair fall over her shoulders, using her free hand to shield her flaming face as best she could.

The day had only just begun.

--

--

When Ancient Runes finally came around, Harry, Ron, and Hermione filed into the musty classroom and dropped their books onto a table off to the side of the room. Hermione dragged up a chair from one of the nearby tables because they only sat two. Fortunately, Professor Harrison cared just about as much as Knoll on what the students did or did not do in his class.

"How was working for Snape?" Harry asked Hermione.

She ignored him.

Ron, who had no idea what was going on, turned to Hermione. "Hermione?"

"You can't still be on about that?" Harry laughed. She gave him a pointed look that said quite plainly 'oh-yes-I-can'.

Harry rolled his eyes and kicked his feet up onto their table. Hermione, wand tucked in its place behind her ear, heaved her book-laden bag onto her lap and began flipping through the papers inside it.

"Hermione?" Ron said again.

She huffed as if he'd interrupted a very important riffling, and gave him an annoyed look before giving in and turning to them both with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Harry seems to be under the...very false assumption that Sirius and Remus are interested in me," she quipped.

"Did either of them touch you?!" Ron demanded.

"WHAT?!" Hermione yelled. "No!"

Harry waved his hand at Ron in a Vanna White-esque gesture. He actually said "I told you so."

"Why?" She asked, bewildered. "Why would you both think that?"

"The looks at meals," Harry said.

"The pet name," Ron added.

"Studying together."

"Flirting."

"Passing notes."

They were more talking to themselves now, than Hermione herself.

"Did you know Sirius offered to help with the Aureus Prophecy?" Ron told Harry.

Hermione gaped. "You heard that?!"

"Of course, I think he may have been looking down her shirt at the time..." Ron murmured with a frown.

"The whole school thinks there's a thing between Remus and her," Harry informed him.

"Really?" he murmured in interest.

"Stop it, both of you!" Hermione demanded slapping her palms down on the desk.

Ron 'pish-posh'ed. "Don't worry; it's cute."

Harry's face was a pull on apologetic. "It is kinda cute."

"And just a little funny," Ron's face cracked a smile, though he tried to stop it.

Harry held up his thumb and index finger and squinted through the tiny gap he made of them. "Just an itsy bit."

"It's weird," she said in a clarifying tone.

Their mocking didn't slack off at all as they exchanged looks as if to say 'nah'. "It's not weird," Ron said.

"Not even a little weird," Harry insisted.

That echoing thing was getting annoying.

"He's your godfather for Merlin's sake!" Hermione exclaimed. She threw her hands up in the air. "And Remus was our Professor."

"That just shows how responsible they are," Harry pointed out.

"They were thirty some years old in our time," Hermione continued.

"Plenty of time to gain knowledge and life experiences," Ron interjected.

"They're like a fine wine," Harry added, nodded sagely. "Improving with age."

"In case you hadn't remembered," Hermione gritted out through her teeth. "They're also both dead in our time."

"But they aren't any more," Ron piped, before switching to a tone that sounded very much like Hermione's pappy. "They're now strapping, young men."

Harry was nodding his head like some sort of bobble-head doll. "Resilient."

Hermione uncrossed her arms with a sigh and laid them out on the table, her nails clacking unconsciously atop the wooden top. "There are rules about forming relationships with Time Travelers," Hermione lectured. "Our friendship with them may already be jeopardizing the timeline."

"And how do we know this isn't what we're supposed to do?" Ron countered, for once making a decent point. "What if, by not forming any relations with them at all, the timeline is ruined?"

"And this is all assuming that we're able to send them back at all," Harry brought up. "They might be stuck in this time forever."

"But if there is a way..." Hermione trailed off.

"They might not want to go back," Ron finished.

"Dumbledore trusts your judgment about this, and so, by default, mine too," Harry started. Hermione rolled her eyes. "So, here's my advice: don't worry about it."

This made Hermione smile, though probably not in the way Harry had intended. "Has any ever told you you're right awful at giving advice?"

"Yeah, yeah – go right ahead and laugh it up, I'm being serious."

"That name's already taken," Ron interrupted, cheekily.

"We're not making fun anymore," Harry sighed.

Ron grinned. "Oops."

"You want me to just go against all the rules and do whatever I feel like," Hermione repeated.

Harry was overjoyed to hear her finally coming around; "Yes!"

"You know, I haven't even said anything about liking them," she commented casually.

Ron sighed loudly. "Geez, Hermione – you're no fun."

"It's not my job to be fun," she teased.

"No!" Harry readily agreed, which made Hermione wary. "You're job is to attract the guys."

"They're not going to like me once training starts," she told them firmly, looking up as students began to reluctantly enter the room as the bell ringing neared. There weren't that many seventh years taking the class and the ones that entered took tables on the other side of the room. Slytherins.

"Yeah..." Ron sighed. Hermione scowled – he wasn't supposed to agree with her! "You can be a bitch..."

"Thanks," she grumbled, going back to her earlier, pointless riffling.

"Well you are pretty intense," Harry said slowly; afraid she might punch him again.

"I'm surprised you two don't hate me yet," she murmured morosely.

Ron clapped her heartily on the back and she lurched forward, knocking papers all over the floor. "Don't worry. We never liked you in the first place!" He teased.

"Ron!" Harry exclaimed in surprised laughter.

Hermione punched him.

"OW!"

Ron cradled his injured arm to his chest. "That really hurt."

"I told you!" Harry reminded him resoundingly. To Hermione he said; "You really gotta stop going around punching people."

"It's not nice!" Ron insisted.

Harry nodded. "Because it's not nice."

The bell rang following his words and Hermione began picking up the papers Ron's sudden thumping had made her litter the floor with. "How I got stuck with you pair of fools is beyond me," she reflected snidely.

"Would you rather be stuck with two other blokes?" Ron waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione's eyes narrowed, the voice of their professor as he began the lesson buzzing in the background. "Drop it," she warned.

They wouldn't mention it again until after dinner, when Hermione returned from the library with a large stack of books on Time Travelers and set up shop on the window seat perpendicular to the wall that housed the fireplace.

That's how they found her when the returned from the Great Hall – nose in a book.

--

--

"Hermione!" Lily called across the half-filled common room; students just returning from dinner. "We didn't see you at dinner."

"Yeah, some of us actually missed you."

Hermione looked up long enough to frown disapprovingly at Harry then buried her head back in the current book. She had curled up in the plush window seat, with its cushioned bench and throw pillows and the afghan she'd pulled from the back of one of the couches. The stack of books she'd requisitioned from the library was piled beside the wall beneath her, and a few of the more helpful ones were tucked between her feet and wedged between pillows.

Unable to function past reading in the tight space, Hermione had enchanted her parchment and quill to work independently. If she found something she deemed might be helpful she read the passage aloud and the quill would whiz across the parchment, copying the words in Hermione's distinct, miniscule cursive.

While she waited for her quill to finish the last words she'd spoken before students had begun returning from dinner, she looked up to talk to Harry and was startled to find him crouching right beside her, face even with her shoulder.

"I told you – don't do that creepy, silent sneakin' thing!" She ordered voice a bit breathless from the shock. "We didn't go to those Auror classes for you to scare the daylights out of your friends."

"Yeah, mate," Ron called. He looked like he was setting up for a game of Wizard's Chess. "Use your powers for good, not evil."

"Did you need something?" Harry pressed, ignoring Ron's comment and Hermione's faint chuckles.

"I borrowed your ink," She informed him, tweaking the feathers of her quill. Her parchment was half-filled with green writing and there was a roll of filled ones piled beside her. All, presumably, written in Harry's green ink.

"Does she just go into the dorms whenever she wants?" James asked in incredulity.

"Pretty much," Ron said through a mouthful of the dinner roll he'd snitched from the tables.

"Ya hear that, Padfoot?" James shouted over the back of the couch. "Keep your knickers in your trunk!"

The boys all laughed heartily amidst the girls' dulcet giggling.

All too quickly, the noise died down and they all broke off to their separate tasks. A great deal of first and second years were milling about – prepubescent voices chattering at an almost unbearably high pitch – while the upperclassman had a majority of their population absent from the common room; still wandering the castle while they were able. Or perhaps it was just to get away from the first years.

Hermione continued her research, homework long finished. Comparatively, she was utterly silent, save for the subtle rustling of the books' dry pages as they turned, and the moments where she found a few lines worth recording.

"Time Travelers are often sent purposely through time to complete a predetermined mission. Only once they discover their mission and complete it successfully are they able to return to their original time."

Hermione gave her wearied quill time to complete its stenography and scanned several of the prior occurrences along the bottom of the pages; witches and wizards who had gone backwards and forwards along the timeline with tasks as seemingly trivial as making a friend or helping an old woman across the street, to extreme missions, such as keeping a magical species from going totally extinct or saving a life.

Remus was curled up beneath the window, his back to the wall, and wrapped in the comforter from his bed. His Arithmancy book lay open in his lap and he was diligently working on their assignment, keeping her silent company. Every time she read aloud, the dry scratching of his quill would stop and she felt as if he were listening.

Curious, she finally questioned him on it, but his only reply was "I like hearing your voice" and she was far too pink in the face to form another intelligent sounding inquiry,

After that incident, they both lapsed back into the silence of their work, Hermione only pausing when, after an hour, she noticed that Remus had long since finished his homework. He was leaning back against the wall, arms supported loosely by his knees, and the comforter bunched around his waist. His eyes were closed and it was quite possible that he'd fallen asleep.

"In order to Time Travel one must possess strength of will and a soundness of mind; both of which are essential to time adaptation."

"So when's James gonna crack?" Sirius joked. Apparently, Remus hadn't been the only one listening in.

James went for his wand, but only succeeded in knocking over the tower of Exploding Snap cards he'd been building with Lily. The entire pile exploded with a loud bang! and James was buried in soot.

"You just demolished Godric's Hollow!" Lily complained, jutting her fists on her hips.

James wiped the black charcoal from his eyes so he could see. "Godric's Hollow?"

Lily nodded. "That's what our future home will be called."

He and Sirius both burst into laughter, which only made Lily's frown deepen. "I just feel it, alright?"

Sirius made a face and she promptly swatted him with a pillow, instigating a miniature couch war. Hermione met Harry's eyes across the room. He smiled at her, but she wasn't so sure they should be happy that the Marauder's were gaining some of the memories of their future lives.

"Hermiiiiiione."

She craned her head at an odd angle and found Ron laying despairingly on the oriental throw rug that sat in front of the fireplace – she was surprised to still see him there.

"I'm hungry," he whined, scratching his stomach. He'd discarded his robes and tie earlier, and might as well have gotten rid of the shirt as well for all it was covering – sleeves rolled up to his elbow, top three buttons undone, and the tails tucked out of his trousers.

"We just ate dinner," she reminded him, holding up Harry's slightly depleted inkwell for her quill to re-wet itself.

There was a groan from the floor, as if the mere mention of dinner was making his stomach rumble. "So you're not gonna go?"

"Life's full of little disappointments," she told him apathetically and went back to work.

It was getting close to midnight and the common room was slowly losing its occupants. Hermione looked around and counted nine other students besides their own seven. She started to turn the page of her book, when a line caught her eye and she backtracked.

Clearing her throat, she began to read aloud.

"Time Travelers that journey to the past, when they return to their present and original time, remember all those they meet in the past as well as every experience. The person or person who had knowledge of the Time Traveler retain their memories as well until such time as they are reunited with the Traveler, or, in the cases of great time differential, until death."

There was complete silence in the common room as Hermione read from the ancient book, every task gone mute so that her voice could be heard. It was a low, murmuring alto, that when she spoke softly enough it had a humming, vibratious quality to it – like the tingling wave of heat that came with drinking hot cocoa on a winter day.

"Witches and wizards who travel to the future are surrounded by much different circumstances. When such Time Travelers return to the past, they—"

Hermione stopped talking.

Remus' eyes opened at the sudden stop and he, like the others, turned to look at Hermione. Her brow was furrowed as if in deep thought and the book was frozen in her hands. If one looked at her eyes they found them to be darting back and forth along the same boundaries, reading one line again and again. The enchanted quill hovered uncertainly over the parchment.

Then she closed the book.

Unwinding herself from the position she'd long occupied on the boxy window seat, she seat the book beside her and when she saw Remus' gaze drifting to it, she tapped it with her wand and with a loud zap! the books and parchment disappeared.

"I think I will make a quick run down to the kitchens." She smiled tightly and hopped down onto the floor beside Remus.

"Really?" Ron sounded surprised. Hermione nodded and moved quickly for the door, ducking her head so that her bushy curls fell over her face.

Ron sat right up and began rattling off things he wanted, but Hermione disappeared out the door before he'd even finished, and his long tirade was cut off by the slamming of the portrait door.

They waited until half past one, when Lily was no longer able to stay awake (no matter how many times James exploded their future home), but Hermione never returned.

--

There was one week 'til training.