Falling Leaves
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Hermione took a bite of the chocolate bar Remus had given her and rested her back against the garden wall, gazing up ahead, "We are calling it the D.A."
Some things never registered in her mind, like the hard, cold stone ground as their seat or the electricity that ran in the space between her and Remus' almost-touching shoulders. Perhaps not even the taste of chocolate. Not when the royalty had arrived, announcing the time for the regal ball.
Hermione could hardly blink. All around them, monarch butterflies flittered over their kingdom, gracing random subjects with their touch, partaking of their nectar. At times, they would shiver their wings, poised in place, and take flight, quivering autumn in a majestic, mellifluous choreography. Hermione watched transfixed – her parents had taken her to ballet presentations, and, though riveting, all of them paled. Pliés and pirouettes, regardless of how graceful, could never enthrall her the same way that nature itself did.
Back when she had been little, she had found a copy of Bach's There's No Such Place As Far Away in her parents' bookcase, and the watercolor owl in the cover would always transport her to a forest, the freshness of wet grass and earth drifting in the air. She could almost feel the coarseness of a tree trunk beneath her palm as animals of all sorts showed to keep her company. It was the reason her parents had started to take her on camping trips, excitement bubbling in her stomach at the prospect of spotting a curious-looking insect or a wary yet nosy squirrel. The marvel now before her eyes should have revived the feeling tenfold.
Not for the first time, though, and unfortunately not for the last, what-ifs plagued her mind. She couldn't decide on what would be best and therefore she did nothing, aware that doing nothing constituted a choice in itself. The boys didn't know about the garden and Hermione couldn't bring herself to tell them. At times, it felt despicable of her not to try and have Remus bring Harry's parents along so that Harry could meet them. At others, it felt incredibly cruel to taunt him with something he could never really have, something akin to footprints in the sand, yielding to shifting waves and unheeding wind and, once time caught up to them, vanishing without a trace. It made her maudlin, the beauty before her fleeting and brittle.
She forgot she had even spoken, startling at the timbre of Remus' voice, "D.A.? As in Defence… Alliance? No, wait, Defence Association?"
A forlorn smile tugged at her lips, "Not quite."
She couldn't tell whether Remus had picked up on her mood, but he insisted, his voice growing higher, "Assembly? Academy? Activists? Ascendants? Apprentices? I'm running out of words here… Defence Avengers?"
"No, stop!" That drew a short laugh out of her. The image of her rag-tag group of friends wearing costumes such as the larger-than-life heroes in the American comics patched the void in her stomach, at least for a moment. Remus had likely never heard about them, and she bumped her shoulder against his, "We're as far from Avengers as we could possibly get. The A stands for Army."
From the corner of her eye, she saw that he was no longer staring at the butterflies, his gaze lowered to the ground, "An armed force… Fitting, since the point is to use wands. In this case, they should prove mightier than quills, I think."
Just as Hermione hadn't corrected Remus' assumption about the reason they needed to learn defensive spells in the first place, she neither divulged the real meaning of the D nor did she expand on all of the A's implications. Perhaps the prospect of war still remained a year or two away from Remus, and she was loath to be the one to rob him of even a minute of peace, let alone years. Or so she thought, perhaps it was merely her indecisiveness again, causing her to lie by omission to another boy other than the ones in her own time.
A liar across the ages.
Hermione grabbed a piece of parchment from the back pocket of her jeans, "More so than you think. She's already declared war on us," She unfurled it and handed it to him.
"An educational decree?" Remus said, taking a moment to read it, "Can she do that? Ban student clubs?"
"I'm afraid so. This woman was never hired, she was appointed. By the Minister of Magic himself," Hermione motioned towards the bottom of the parchment, "See here? She's no longer a teacher. Or not just that, anyway."
"A high inquisitor? I've never seen anything like that."
"Neither have I. The Minister has gone mad. He sees threats where there are none and ignores the ones around. Fear and insecurity can prove dangerous when felt by powerful people... That's why he is giving her carte-blanche. Because he trusts her, who will torture students, and not Dumbledore, who would never do so."
"So what now?"
"We adapt. Fortunately for us, this garden isn't the only magical room in Hogwarts. There's another, a hidden one. A friend told us about it, it's quite useful, not to mention safe. The D.A. is meeting there a few hours from now. Oh, that reminds me, I made you something."
"You did?"
Hermione turned to face him, adjusting herself to a crossed-legged position and Remus mirrored her movements. The contents of the bag clinked when she fetched it from her robe. She undid the knot on the string that kept it closed and reached inside.
"Well, I kept thinking the members of the group would need a way to communicate about meetings and such, so I decided on these," Cold metal touched her fingers like cubes of ice and she withdrew a single Galleon, "They're fake. I made them so they would be inconspicuous if any of the members got caught, yet practical enough that they could be carried anywhere. They should grow hot when the message is changed."
"Transfiguration and a protean charm?"
"It was the best solution I could find, really."
"It's a terrific one," Remus examined the coin, turning it one way and the other, "And do you think it will work for me, even though I'm twenty years behind?"
Hermione bit her lip, "Not really."
"Then why—"
"Because you're the reason this group even exists. You should be a part of it, at least in some way. And I wanted you to have it."
Remus closed his hand around the coin, "It won't leave my side."
They stared at each other for way too long, the moment stretched farther than it should have been. She blamed his eyes. And his ridiculously open and soft expression.
Hermione was the one to break their gaze. "The spells—I think we should begin practicing them. Well, maybe not right now. I don't believe we can shield all the monarchs along with the plants. It'll scare them away."
Oftentimes during their time together, Hermione found the need to redirect their conversations. There was a sweetness about Remus that, slowly but surely, turned the crush she had developed for him into a well of adoration. And she could curse his features all she liked, but the reason she was so near to drowning in it was mostly of her own doing or that of her unruly heart.
"We would have less to worry about in the other garden. Between the two of us, I'm sure we can secure our fledgling plot."
She nodded, more to herself than to him, "Right. Let's do it."
They established a routine. Hermione would transfigure targets out of dry leaves and training dummies out of the muffins Remus pilfered from the kitchens, and they would teach each other jinxes and charms that grew more creative each day. Remus had taken to researching complex, unique ones during meals, classes, and Quidditch matches because there was something inherently beautiful in the way Hermione would observe his movements, flick her wrist, and ignite. Her face would be wash in different colors, light and shadow playing with her features and reflecting in her eyes. On occasion, one of them would challenge the other for a duel, and sparks and flashes would dash and dart all around. There was never a clear winner as they would always end up on the floor, breathless not from effort or pain, but from laughing at the absurdity of the jinxes thrown by the other.
If monsters could taste a bit of heaven, he was sure it was this.
"I don't believe I can do it."
Remus had replicated her movements to the letter several times, and despite the light–however flickering and dim it looked–stemming from the tip of Hermione's wand, his attempts produced nothing. He had the feeling he would never master that specific spell – there was every chance that his curse had muddied his magic to the point it rotted, a blight so significant it kept the purest of spells from manifesting. Remus closed his eyes, training his face to remain expressionless, to keep it from reflecting the emptiness crawling up his gut, bearing the lead-like weight it ironically added to his limbs along with the stain brought on by the closeness to the full moon.
A rustling sounded beside him and the faint light he could discern behind his eyelids faded, "Of course you can."
He pressed his lips together and reopened his eyes, the muscles of his neck corded, "Are you cheering for me or telling me?"
"Well, both, I suppose," Her brows furrowed in thought, and Remus had never ceased to be amazed at the way she could have an entire discussion in her head in the span of a few seconds, but, at the moment, he wanted to snarl at it. She was the one with all the knowledge he could never touch, wasn't she? "I told you I won't hold you against yourself, Remus. But this is a bit different."
"Different how?" The bite in his tone wasn't intended, but it felt right, justified. She had gone back on her word, his ineptitudes had started to show.
"It's… a cycle, for lack of a better word. Or a loop. A friend once said he had managed to perform this spell for the first time because he already had."
A friend said… wait, what? "I don't think I follow."
"You see, this garden isn't my first experience with time travel."
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, "You make a habit out of it?"
"Sarcasm... I should've expected that," A smirk softened her words, and she quirked an eyebrow at him, "I did, in fact. Make a habit of it. I was granted a time-turner during my third year to take on more classes than a regular schedule would allow."
All previous thoughts blanked in his mind, "A time-turner?! That is highly unfair, no one ever offered me one."
Remus had never wished for something more than he did for a surface to bang his head against right at that moment. He had gone from righteous anger to sounding like a petulant child.
"Well, my friends aren't nearly the hellions yours are. Or, at least, not intentionally. And I'm notorious for following the rules... mostly." He shot her a look and she huffed, "Fine, maybe it is unfair, but the point is, I had to take a friend along once and reached a point in which our past selves were in a spot of trouble with dementors." She held up a hand to stave off the question about to fall from his lips, "Please, Remus, don't ask or I'll never finish explaining. Our past selves had been saved by someone who had cast the Patronus charm. We thought it had been someone else who did it, but Harry realized we were at the exact place and time and no one else was there. You see, it had been Harry who had saved us all along, and, since he knew, had seen his Patronus come out, he was able to cast it."
"How does that relate to me?"
"Because he is the one who taught me, I am the one teaching you, and you are the one who taught him. It stands to reason you will learn it, eventually if not now, or he wouldn't have done it in the first place."
"The wonders of time-traveling?"
"Quite."
When Remus did manage to produce a Patronus, it was only to find it abhorrent. How happy memories could manifest into his worst nightmare he didn't know, but there the wolf was, bounding around the room all the same and circlingHermione before stopping to stare at him. With a wave of his wand, the beast disappeared. And Remus had to curb the need to vomit throughout Hermione's excitement.
A/N: Hey everyone, here's another finished one!
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