Ch. 6- A Change in Sight
Tears streamed down Hermione's face as she looked at Sirius and Remus, both younger than she had ever known them. If she wasn't mistaken, they appeared to be seventeen, her own age! Both looked far better than she had ever seen them: Sirius, healthy looking without the forlorn air that had been about him after escaping Azkaban; Remus, far less weary looking and with a decent set of school robes. She figured that poverty must have hit him after he had finished school and went out for a job.
"Sirius, Remus," she said quietly through her silent tears. She got out of her bed and hugged them both. She then looked at Sirius once more and threw herself at him, sobbing into his shirt, as he patted her awkwardly, and looked at Remus, not knowing what to make of it. Remus frowned.
"Sirius, I have missed you. Why did you have to leave Harry and me?"
Remus knew what she was talking of. He had a strange gift. One that only Dumbledore knew about. Just by looking into someone's eyes, he would gain knowledge of their past, present, and future, though he could never tell. But the arrival of the girl had changed what Sirius's future was meant to be.
Before he had seen his friend confronting a figure that was shadowed out, going to Azkaban, escaping the prison, and then dieing to save his Godson, Harry—James and Lily's son, and his friends, one of which was the girl who he knew to be named Hermione Granger.
Now, however, he saw Sirius falling in love with her, and Hermione falling in love with him. No Azkaban, no death. And there was something else he saw, something he shuddered at: the lost friendship between them. And he knew, from the moment he looked into her eyes when he entered the room, that that friendship would be lost over a girl, and not just any girl. Their friendship would end over the girl standing before them.
Much of Hermione's old present had changed, for her old present was now her future, and this past, her new present. She would stay in this time by choice, for one of the two guys she loved: Sirius or himself. He didn't know whom she would choose because he had forced his gaze from hers before he could find out. He found he didn't want to know.
With his gift, only the first time he looked into someone's eyes would he see what was to come, and unless something caused change—as it had with Sirius—from that moment he would see nothing more of the person's future, he would see them just as any normal person would.
People thought of this ability as a gift—and called it such—but Remus thought it a curse he wished to be rid of.
Once Hermione had calmed down, Sirius helped her to the bed.
"Well, you've heard everything, I'm sure," Dumbledore said, though he didn't appear angry.
Remus looked up at the girl and sighed.
This girl was not for him. Hermione was for Sirius and being his friend, he should be happy. But why? Why should he give up such a wonderful girl? It wasn't fair that his friends should get everything and he get nothing.
Stop it, he told himself sternly. They will fall in love, marry, and that's that.
But you will fall in love with her, argued another part of him.
She will never love me in return.
You could make her love you rather than him.
I can't do that to Sirius. I won't.
Oh, but you will, his other side finished. You will when you see that you love her too much to let her go.
He smiled up at her, and then looked at Sirius and was shocked at the expression he saw on his friend's face. Jealousy, and possessiveness were barely hidden in the narrowed dark blue eyes, and mouth held tight.
And so it starts, he sighed.