Completed: 03/25/05 10:50 PM
Posted: 03/25/05 11:18
A/N: Think I can finish TR in a week? Let's go for it peoples!
The Marauder's belief proved correct when they were brightly awoken the next morning by Hermione, who seemed to be running late herself as she only stopped to shove coffee at Harry before making her apologies and all but falling back down the stairs – bare feet slapping on the marble steps. While Harry and Ron satisfied their bad caffeine habit and a squeaking Neville realized he'd slept in, the three other occupants exchanged stupefied looks – as if they'd half-expected to be sent back in time while they were sleeping.
Make that two occupants.
"Come on, Moony, wake up!" Sirius said loudly, slapping Remus' bed. The bunched up comforter deflated under his hand and through the blankets he hit mattress. A rather unnecessary flinging of the sheets off the bed confirmed it – Remus wasn't there.
Sirius made a face at James who only shrugged and began digging under his bed for trousers.
Lily, sweeping her bangs to the side in a barrette, couldn't help but laugh as Hermione tried to run about the common room with what seemed to be her entire room on her back and get ready at the same time. Just when it looked as though she was going to head right out the door, Lily felt she had to speak up.
"Hermione!"
The one-girl-disaster stumbled around and almost dropped her coffee. "Eh?"
Lily pointed down. "Shoes?"
Hermione looked down as well, her stocking-covered toes wiggling up at her. If she had a free hand with which to slap her forehead she would have done so twice. As it was, she just sighed. "Right..."
Hitching her satchel higher up on her shoulder and shifting her substantial stack of library books to one hand, she might have actually tried to balance her cup on top of her head if Lily hadn't jumped in to save her. With a wave of her hand, Hermione's Mary-Janes came whizzing through one of the open windows of the common room – Lily assumed because they couldn't get through the password-locked portrait. The brunette tugged the paten-leather shoes on with an amusing-to-watch little hop dance, and then she was retrieving her beverage and downing quite a significant amount in relation to how hot it must have been.
"What would I do without you, Lily," Hermione chuckled, pushing open the portrait and stepping out into the tower hall.
Lily quirked her head to the side, the comment had been so odd. Hadn't she just been ready to send her back some fifty years? Shaking her head, Lily followed her out letting the still-dozing painting of the Fat Lady drift softly shut.
Hermione Granger was certainly a puzzling character.
When they reached the Great Hall, Hermione excused herself from Lily, saying that she needed to get the homework she'd missed from the Professors. The redhead smiled and went and took a seat beside Remus, who was already eating; nose deep in his restrained Monster Book of Monsters.
With a bit of a skip-step, Hermione picked up her pace and with a rapid tip-tapping had mounted the short flight of stairs that raised the platform from the rest of the Great Hall and was approaching the Teacher's Table. She waved to Hagrid and was about to head for the opposite end, when Dumbledore caught her eye.
"Miss Granger!" He exclaimed warmly, lifting his drinking chalice in hello.
"Good morning, professor," she responded in kind with a short curtsy. "I trust everything is well?"
"I should be asking you." Behind those famed half-moon spectacles, his keen blue eyes were glinting with hidden knowing. "Rumor has it the ever punctual Head Girl was absent from her afternoon lessons this day prior..."
"My apologies, professor. During lunch yesterday, I seemed to have come down with something of a chest cold. Such things are common this time of year, so I didn't want to bother Madame Pomfrey with something so trivial. And after all, it seems a little rest was all I needed."
Dumbledore beamed. "That is good to hear. I myself developed quite an itch in my chin just last ni—"
"Albus!" Minerva McGonagall shushed. "Miss Granger is here to collect her homework, I'm sure," she said this with a pointed tone. "We mustn't detain her."
"Oh! Quite right, quite right." The Headmaster crowed. He smiled at the young girl again. "You'll forgive an old man his ramblings. Minerva here didn't think my itch was that serious, but I think it might be a sign I'm coming down with a case of the polskies..."
"Albus – stop making things up," Minerva hissed, jabbing him sharply with her elbow. "Really, quite inappropriate behavior for a Headmaster of Hogwarts..."
Dumbledore winked at Hermione, and with a grin she made her escape down the table.
When she saw the professor she needed getting up from his place and moving to leave, she picked up her pace once again and deftly slid herself into his path. Remember what Lily said, she told herself, and in fact managed a true smile as he approached.
"Good morning, Professor Snape!" Her smile widened as he jumped a bit, not having noticed her before. "Did you have the baked ham this morning? I heard it was particularly good—"
"What-" he snapped, black eyes narrowing. "-are you doing, Granger."
"I was only making light conversation, sir," she insisted demurely.
Snape flicked his voluminous black-on-black robes beyond him (probably preparing for a good billow) and sneered down at her with a particularly intense distaste. "Five points for your cheek, Granger, and a further five for needlessly detaining me from my work."
Hermione bit the side of her tongue to keep from blurting out something that would without a doubt result in further point-deduction from Gryffindor or possibly detention. Instead, she took a more serious approach – one Snape could connect with. "It is not needless. In fact, I need your assistance." The glowering professor raised an eyebrow at this. "I seem to require silk worm chrysalises – you must have some?"
"Silk worm chrysalises?" he hissed. Snape's eyes darted, searching for any onlookers whose ears might have wandered from their own conversations.
"Yes; two."
He regarded her with a dark countenance before his lip curled back in a superior sneer. "What project is the pet of the Headmaster ensconced in now?" He said contemptuously.
Hermione bristled, her pride now pricked, but again held her tongue. "An Order experiment," she told him in a voice hardly above silence.
"Experiment," he snickered derisively. "No experiment requires something as rare as chrysalises – silk worms' no less."
"Fresh chrysalises," she corrected.
"You foolish girl," hissed Snape. "This is no mere parlor potion you're working on. It sounds to me like Dark—"
"There's no such thing as Dark magick," Hermione interrupted. "Only magick—"
"—more powerful than others," he finished with a smirk. "You've been talking to Dumbledore."
Hermione was getting impatient. "The chrysalises?"
"I have not heard of any potions experiments for the Order..."
"And I'm sure you'd be the first one they'd contact, sir," she told him tersely. "But as of yet, no one in the Order knows about it. In fact, you are the first – so in fact you have heard—"
"Will I be forced to take more points from your house, Granger, or has your tongue tired from its impetuous wagging?" he threatened.
"With all due respect, professor, you do not seem to be a man who could be forced to do anything he does not wish to do," Hermione said truthfully.
Snape stared her down, folding his arms into the folds of his robes and attempting to intimidate her with his superior height and stance. Hermione didn't budge. Though he hadn't responded well to her attempts at cordialness, she respected the man enough to at least be truthful.
"Impertinent girl," he said finally. "The reasons for Albus' favor in you are clear."
Hermione's fists clenched, but she needed those chrysalises. Again, she said nothing.
"I will inquire with the Headmaster of your...request," he sneered.
"I need them tonight," she said.
"No you don't. While foolish, you are far from the incompetence of Longbottom; if you couldn't get the ingredient from me, you'd leave yourself enough time to get them by other means."
"I don't know what you've heard, Professor, but I can't say I have 'other means'. The next Hogsmeade trip is two weeks away," she said.
"Do not insult my intelligence, Granger," Snape answered darkly. "I will speak with you tomorrow."
With a whipping of his robes over his shoulder, the tall Potions Professor stalked around her with bat-like billow of black clothes and a sinister scowl and descended through the Great Hall's side door into the dungeons – blending in perfectly, she thought, with the dark, dank shadows and fly-stuck cobwebs.
Collecting herself, she turned on her heel and marched smartly down the stairs and to the Gryffindor table, where the rest of the boys had already arrived and begun eating.
"What was that all about with Snake?" Ron asked through a mouthful of hash browns as she sat down across from him.
Making a face at the disgusting display, she set down the platter she'd just picked up – deciding she didn't want hash browns after all – and moved instead to grab a few pieces of toast. "Oh, nothing," she said, and Harry frowned just out of her line of sight.
She bit down and scrunched up her face. Cold. She detested cold toast. "We're going to need to get ten points back, by the way," she told the group with a napkin wiping at her mouth as she finished chewing.
"Nice going!" Ron complained, and Hermione stuck out her tongue at him.
"You're wearing a ribbon."
Hermione's laughter died off and she looked at Remus, for it was he who had spoken, with a look of confusion. "Excuse me?"
The brunet smiled kindly and pointed to her hair. "You've put a ribbon in your hair; I just noticed."
A hand went to her hair automatically where she'd tied a bow of soft blue ribbon around the rubber band that held back the front of her hair. "Oh..." she said, rather lamely, embarrassed that she'd forgotten. "I just had some of it lying around, so..."
Remus chuckled.
"Should I take it out?" She asked, putting a hand to her hair again. She made a face. "I look silly, don't I..."
"No, no," he insisted, waving his hands in front of his face. "Leave it. It's very pretty."
Hermione flushed and lowered her gaze. "Oh, um, thank you..."
She turned back to her plate, lifting her golden goblet to her lips to try and cool the unfamiliar heat that was rising in her cheeks by the second. Remus coughed, and when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and over the rim of her glass, she saw that his face was almost completely hidden by his Care of Magical Creatures textbook.
Over the pages, Remus watched her reach across the table for the milk pitcher, and as she did so, a glimmer of gold spilled from the open collar of her blouse. "You're wearing the locket," he murmured.
Remus didn't think she'd heard him, but she immediately answered. "Hmm? Oh, yes. Well, it's very beautiful," she told him, cupping the tail of the necklace in her palm. Instead of allowing the blush to rise in her cheeks again, Hermione turned to wit instead. "And it was given to me by a good friend whom I care a lot for, so it is an honor for me to wear such a gift."
She cast a sidelong long at him through her lashes and he laughed softly at her, cheeks rosy. Then he shook his shaggy head and picked up his own goblet. "What a handsome friend you must have to give you such a handsome gift."
Hermione laughed, loudly this time, and let the locket fall back against her chest. "It is a pretty gift, from a pretty friend."
Remus attempted to look wounded. "Calling a man 'pretty'? What a cruel heart you have."
Hermione snorted. "A man, are you?" She shook her head, curls bouncing. "Whose being the funny one now?"
Before Remus could answer, Sirius had stolen away her attention with a call of her name. "Hey Hermione..."
"Yes?"
Sirius was leaning over the table a bit, his tie coming dangerously close to hanging down into the honey saucer. "You weren't really planning on sending us back...were you?"
All eyes were on her. She was silent for a moment, and Remus could only imagine what it was going through her head. Then she smiled, but to the lycan beside her it seemed to strain her eyes; a smile not quite real. "No..." she said softly, and that was it.
"No!" Ron exclaimed.
"Dumbledore wouldn't even let me go back to Azkaban to retrieve the return ritual," Hermione explained.
"I don't think you needed it," James told her honestly. "I think you could have sent us back..."
A wane smile. "You overestimate my abilities and my memory. Without the ritual there was nothing I could do."
"That's what you were talking to him about?" Harry questioned. To this, Hermione murmured an apology.
"I know your feelings are less than amiable for the Headmaster, but you should know that he is obsessively persistent in doing whatever is in his power to keep me out of Azkaban again," Hermione told her best friend in a voice that was itself less than amiable.
Remus could only watch as the young girl, who'd just moments before been teasing him and getting embarrassed over so silly a thing as a hair ribbon, began to retreat; receding away like the midnight blossoms of nightshade as the sun crept over the horizon. He wanted to intercede, to stop the conversation that was having such a negative affect on her, but for all the gold in Gringotts...he couldn't think of a thing to say.
"Of course he should!" Harry exclaimed. "You don't want to go back do you?"
Hermione remained seated but she seemed in that instant to grow three feet taller. "If you had been there you would not throw such a question so carelessly about." Her voice, even as stone, would have slapped its way across Harry's face if it'd had the hand to do it.
If you could have seen Harry's face in that moment, your heart might very well have broken. It was Hermione's heart that did, or so it looked. Her posture deflated, her shoulders hunching and her eyes finding their way down to the silverware. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't wish to fight with you..."
"You're different, Hermione..." Her head snapped up in shock, but Harry was looking down at his hands. "You hardly sleep, hardly eat, and every time I talk to you...I have to wonder if your telling me the truth. What do you hope to gain by keeping everything a secret? What can be greater than everything you're losing to it? You think you have to take everything on your shoulders, to take care of everyone, but you're killing yourself because of it. What happened to my best friend...?"
Whatever this was, it seemed a long time in coming. Harry did meet her eyes this time, but he could be as emotionless as she, and it was Hermione whose face was red and her hands trembling. She stood up with such suddenness that the tabletop rattled and the bench scraped backwards with Lily and Remus still on it.
"I'll just stop pretending then, shall I?" she said hotly. Her hands were clenched so tightly into fists that they shook at her sides. With a fierce yank, she ripped the pretty blue ribbon from her hair and wiped what little lipgloss she'd worn from her mouth with a napkin. She threw both upon the table in front of Harry, whose face now clearly bore his shock. "If you don't mind," she said curtly, reaching up to grab a hold of the chain around her neck. "I'll keep my gift."
With her free hand, she scooped up her satchel and stepped back over the bench. "If you'll excuse me, I'd rather not finish this in front of everyone. Unlike you, I don't believe our personal problems deserve an audience."
She walked vehemently out of the Great Hall without a single look back.
Harry was staring hatefully at the tablecloth, hoping any minute it might burst into flames. Then he shoved back from the table and stomped off in the opposite direction.
Ron looked absolutely sick; Lily and the others positively shocked.
Remus had made up his mind. He may not have been able to say anything to prevent the scene from happening, but he was sure as hell going to try and make it better. Snatching up the forlorn ribbon, he ran out of the Great Hall waving off his friends' confused outcries.
He found her sitting beneath the large willow tree he and the other Marauders had so often occupied in their own time. As he approached he watched her vent her frustration on the innocent river rocks that had washed up on the edge of the lake. With one hand she motioned them flinging up into the air and with the other she pulverized them into irreversible specks of dust.
"Nice shot," he commented quietly, taking a seat on the grass beside her.
"One of the first tricks I learned," she replied. "With this curse..."
Remus drew one knee up to his chest, making himself comfortable now that he knew Hermione wasn't going to try and blow him up next. "That's no curse," he said lightly. "I know curses, and, let me tell you, that, my friend, is no curse."
"What do you want?" she demanded, never taking her eyes off the rocks. His attempt at lightening her mood had failed most miserably.
"I came to listen."
Hermione snorted in contempt. "You mean you came 'to talk'."
"Nope." Remus merely shook his head. "I said what I meant – I'm here to listen."
She looked sharply at him, and it was the first time she'd even looked at him at all since he'd gotten there. Then she went back to what she was doing with a frown. "Then your wasting your time; you won't hear much of anything."
"You're talking aren't you?" he pointed out.
PLOP! The stone Hermione had flung up had been neglected and left to fall back into the lake. There was a disgruntled tremor in the water as the Giant Squid protested to having things flung at it, but then the lake was calm again and the two teenagers had nothing left to look at but each other.
"What...did you think you'd come here and be all perfect and supportive and I'd just pour my heart out to you?" she accused in a murmur. "Good try, but you're out of luck."
Remus just raised his eyebrows.
Hermione scowled. "Oh, you're just gonna sit there and listen – I forgot."
Remus didn't say anything. If she wanted to be mad at him then she could go right ahead, he didn't care. If all she needed was someone to sit there and serve as a target for her anger, then that was what he would do for as long as she needed him to.
He watched her blow up rock after rock, with patient silence. Then on the next round, instead of the usual shower of rubble, a sparking fireball flew from her palm and arced up into the air, landing after the plopping! pebble with a sizzle into the water. Hermione was staring down at her hands as if they'd somehow betrayed her.
"Who is he to judge me..." she whispered suddenly. Her forefinger traced the lines of her palm.
Remus said nothing.
"It's not as though wanting to protect people is the worst desire to have..." She wrapped her arms around her legs and set her chin down between her knees. "I did it all for him and Ron. Ginny, Neville, Luna. And now you four as well..."
She didn't cry, but there was still a cloud of utter sadness about her; choking the air around them. "Who will help the helpless, protect the guardianless? Who if not me? There is a threat here that needs to be faced, stood up against – so I am to be punished for doing what is needed? What is necessary? I do what I have to and I suffer what I must because if I'm the only one who has to then it's all worth it."
She turned her head to look at him, her small face buried in a mountain of tangled curls. She smiled, despite herself, at his devoted silence and murmured thickly "You can talk now, if you'd like. You can be a listener and a talker..."
He shrugged and turned to face her a little better. "I have nothing to say."
She scoffed softly at this; though, he was glad her anger had dissipated. And now it seemed her sadness was lifting too. "Nonsense. Everyone always has something to say about anything."
Remus smiled, all be it a bit lopsidedly. Hermione's smile widened a stitch. "I'm a funny girl you know," she told him softly. "You might not have noticed..."
"I noticed..."
"I'm just saying because not a lot of people do."
"I'm sure you're wrong."
"I'm not."
Hermione looked out across the lake and Remus sighed. Picking his words carefully, he said, "I think you should tell Harry what you told me just now."
Hermione actually laughed at the absurdity of the thought. "That whole speech? I wouldn't get a whole sentence in before we started arguing." She sighed and tucked a wind-swept lock of hair back behind her ear. "No...Harry isn't the listener you are Remus."
Remus shrugged. "He could be."
"You don't even know us."
Her words hurt. They cut especially more deep because he knew them in his heart to be true. Swallowing slowly, he said, "Look at the back of the locket."
Hermione did as he asked and once again read over the words engraved there. She shook her head with a bittersweet smile. "And what is it you understand?"
He caught her gaze and held it. "Everything."
"Not me," she said. "You don't even know half the things I do."
"I don't have to," Remus said simply. "I understand anyway. It doesn't matter what you do, or who you become...just read the back of the locket."
"Remus..."
He opened his fist above his head, and the ribbon she'd thrown down at breakfast unfurled into the cool air. They both watched it flutter bravely in the light wind.
"You are a remarkably ridiculous Gryffindor" was what she said.
Remus rolled his eyes, but took it as a compliment and scooted over in the grass so that he could tie the ribbon back into her hair. Her breath was hot against his arm as he worked to duplicate the perfect bow she'd had earlier and he too was aware of how close they were together.
"There," he said when he was satisfied. He lowered his arms but was still kneeling beside her. "If we hurry we can still make it to Transfiguration on time."
Hermione took his outstretched hand and he hauled her to her feet.
Hermione sought out Harry to partner up with in class, and though he couldn't hear what they were saying over James' loud boasts of his "mad skills", Remus hoped she'd found the words to help him understand. It was a tense time for all of them and patience was wearing thin on all counts. Lily herself, seemed particularly on edge as Halloween approached though he couldn't figure out why.
He did know one thing though: No matter what she'd said in the Great Hall, Hermione had fully intended to send them all back.
She wouldn't have written the letter otherwise.
>> Why hello to all you conscientious readers! Who doesn't love a good bit of trivia? Can anyone remember why Hermione might have spare blue ribbon lying around? Go super-sleuths, GO!
