Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. All characters, places, descriptions, etc (unless original and created by me) belong to her.

Summary: It was a small pack, of course, just the five of them, but together they were something wild. Hermione finds herself in the Marauders' Era with four new best friends.

Chapter 12: Aegri Somnia

1 September 1977

Seventh Year Girls Dormitory

"Ugh, honestly that James Potter is going to be the death of me."

"Oh, please, Lily. You two are friends now. You can't fool me. I know you don't hate him."

Voices drifted into the bathroom, and Hermione forced herself to leave to safety and seclusion of the shower. She changed quickly into the clothes she had brought into the bathroom and walked out into the bedroom.

A redhead and a blonde were sitting on the bed next to Hermione's, and she didn't have to look twice to know the redhead was none other than Lily Evans.

"Okay, so I don't hate him, but I still think he can be an arrogant prat… sometimes."

Hermione was frozen in the doorway. Meeting James Potter and the Marauders was one thing, but Lily Evans? Perhaps it was because she already knew Sirius and Remus that meeting James hadn't made her nervous. She had heard so many stories of Harry's father's antics that she felt like she already knew him a bit. Or maybe it was because he looked so much like Harry, it was hard to be anything but comforted. But Lily… Hermione had never heard a bad word spoken about the witch. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that Lily Evans was nothing short of wonderful.

Hermione suddenly felt a strong need to have Lily like her. Hermione was after all one of Harry's best friends. What would it mean if his own mother didn't like her?

The two girls across the room stopped talking abruptly as they noticed Hermione.

"Oh, you must be Hermione!" Lily jumped up from her bed and walked across the room, hand extended. Hermione smiled and shook her hand. "I'm Lily Evans, Head Girl. James told me about you."

Hermione nodded, still nervous to speak. The girl Lily had been talking to walked over and shook Hermione's hand as well.

"Marlene McKinnon. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too."

"It's a shame you missed the welcome feast, but I suppose it probably would have been awkward for you to be sorted in front of everybody. You're probably be the oldest student to ever wear the Sorting Hat."

"This entire situation is bit awkward, starting my final year somewhere new, but I sort of found myself in circumstances that left me no other choice."

Lily and Marlene smiled at Hermione, but didn't press her for more details. Hermione looked around the room and noticed there were only five beds in the room.

"There's only four of you?"

"Yeah well, Gryffindor had a poor showing of females our year. What was it, Lily, almost half? Yeah, almost half the girls at our sorting went to Ravenclaw. It was so strange. Five girls in a row went to Ravenclaw before Lily got sorted in Gryffindor."

"So who are the other two?"

"Mary MacDonald sleeps over there. She's a prefect and is on rounds tonight, but you'll meet her soon. And over there, that's Dorcas Meadowes' bed. You probably won't see much of her. Her boyfriend is in Hufflepuff, and they're always together." Hermione nodded along and moved toward her bed.

Lily and Marlene sat back on the bed next to Hermione's and exchanged a glance. Hermione saw a familiar glint of curiosity in Lily's eyes. She picked an imaginary piece of lint from her pillow to avoid whatever questions must be bubbling below the surface of her new roommates. She yawned rather dramatically, throwing her arms up in a stretch. Chancing a look at Lily, Hermione saw only empathy.

"So, classes don't start until Monday, but I'd recommend using the weekend to get accustomed to the castle. It gets a bit tricky sometimes, but you'll learn it eventually. I'd be happy to give you a tour and help you find all your classrooms."

"Uh, right. It-It's really a beautiful castle. Remus was showing me around a bit earlier."

Marlene and Lily shared a look. Lily looked back at Hermione.

"Remus Lupin?"

"Um, yeah, I had a bit of a mishap getting here, so I ended up in the hospital wing—that's where I met Remus."

Lily looked pensive for a moment before smiling brightly at Hermione.

"Well if you had to meet any Marauder first, I'm glad it was Remus."

Hermione smiled and shyly said her goodnights. As Lily responded, Hermione had to turn her face away so she wouldn't have to look at her eyes. Seeing such a striking reminder of Harry made her miss him terribly, and suddenly a dark hole opened in her chest. Her sadness swelled and expanded, and she was struggling to contain it. Closing the curtains to her bed, she cast a quick silencing charm.

"Oh Merlin, oh Merlin, oh Merlin."

Hermione flung herself back on her pillows. She felt her face tense up and then—Hermione descended into tears. Her lycanthropy amplified her fear and anxiety as she struggled for breath.

"Okay, okay, just breathe, Hermione. You're okay. I'm okay. It's okay. Everything is going to be okay."

She sat up and ran her hands through her hair.

"Honestly, Remus, what on earth were you thinking? A little warning would have been nice, don't you think?" A switch flipped and her sadness mutated into a sweltering rage. "Seriously, just a little heads up. Oh, Hermione, by the way, this is all an elaborate ruse for you to end up at Hogwarts. Alone! In the '70s! Have fun! I swear, when I see that stupid werewolf again…"

And just like that the levees broke, her anger faded, and Hermione felt empty and lost. She rubbed her eyes and looked up, thinking back to the last time she saw her boys.

The last time she had seen Remus, really seen him without that silly mask, had been the night she asked him to take her away. The last time she had seen Harry and Ron had been days ago. She had been reading in the library, and the boys had been arguing over the specifics of some German quidditch move. She wished she could remember the name.

The last time she had seen Sirius was the night before she left. She remembered him taking off her eye mask and having to focus everything she had into controlling her actions. Sirius had been a bit strange that night. What had he said?

"The Marauders became my family, and to my family I was blindly loyal. I'm stubborn and unreasonable and annoying when it comes to my family. And it's taken a while, but you're there. You made the cut, pup. And I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but I just want—I need you to forgive me for how I treated you before."

Hermione suddenly found new energy. Sirius must have been trying to tell her something that night. He must have been hinting at something. That's why he brought up the Marauders, because he knew she was going back.

"The Marauders are Sirius' family, and he said he was blindly loyal to them. That must explain his attitude toward me… Of course! I met Regulus first. He doesn't trust me…" She had to figure out some way to get on Sirius' good side.

Hermione fell back down as his words swam in her head.

"Blindly loyal… family… You made the cut… forgive me."

The woods were dark. Hermione couldn't remember how she had gotten there. She turned around where she stood and tried to remember which way she had taken. The bottom of her feet tingled with the brush of the forest floor. She was cold and absentmindedly tried to rub some warmth back into her arms.

A deep growl moved like a wave through the trees. She snapped her head around. Another growl, this time a different direction. Then, a howl.

All of a sudden, she was running and running and running and running. The trees were growing taller, the sky was growing darker, and the howls were getting closer. The stars in the sky were moving around, darting in and out of each other. Every few seconds, two stars would collide and grow just a bit bigger. The stars collided more and more until they formed a single ball of light, big enough to be the moon.

A crash of thunder. An iron cage enclosed around Hermione, and she fell to her knees. The growling and howling was almost deafening now. Hermione held her hands over her ears and huddled in the center of the cage, too afraid to go near the edges.

Two figures emerged from the darkness on either side of her. On her right, Remus, somehow stuck between wolf and man. On her left, Sirius, as he was when she first met him in her third year, dirty and crazed.

Remus approached her slowly. As he walked, he started to bend forward, his body shifting to his wolf form. His teeth were sharp and shining, and saliva dripped from his jaw. Hermione crawled as fast as she could to the opposite side of the cage. She looked out into the night for Sirius, but it was too dark.

"Sirius, help me! Help me! Padfoot!"

Sirius reappeared in her vision, but this time he was different. This Sirius was younger; this was seventh year Sirius. This Sirius smirked at Hermione, puffed out his cheeks, and blew in her direction. The walls of the cage fell apart, and Hermione was defenseless. Sirius stepped back into the shadows as if to give Moony permission to continue stalking closer. He snapped his jaws. Hermione turned away, trying to escape.

She screamed just as his fangs met her shoulder.

Hermione awoke with a start. She was covered in a light sweat, and her heart was racing. She took several deep breaths and cast a quick tempus charm.

04:17:07

2 September 1977

With a groan, Hermione sat up, her head disrupting the gold floating numbers. She pulled herself out of bed and slowly opened up her curtains. She looked around the room to make sure she hadn't woken any of her roommates. The room was completely quiet except for the occasional soft snore coming from the direction of Mary MacDonald's bed.

Hermione tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs into the common room. Shadows were scattered around the room by the dying fire. She glanced up the stairs and moved toward the couch that she, Harry, and Ron had commandeered too many times to count. She sat down with a deep sigh. Setting her elbows on her knees, she hid her face in her hands. She sighed again.

"Can you stop doing that?"

Hermione looked up with a start to the chair on her right, but with her special new senses, she realized who it was before her eyes did. And for a moment, she saw him as older, and kinder. But then it was gone, and he was seventeen-year-old Sirius again. His body was flung across a chair; his upper body leaning on one arm while a leg was thrown over the other.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah." His voice was rough.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Something like that." His tone was sarcastic, but Hermione knew by now when he was putting up a front. She knew this boy had demons, and she knew he wasn't one to share his feelings. She didn't press him and kept silent until he spoke again.

"You?"

"Nightmares. It's a, uh, recent thing." She didn't really know why she was telling this to Sirius, but when she looked at him, here in the dark common room, she couldn't help thinking of the Sirius she had grown to know.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Suddenly, she felt awkward, like she had shared too much.

The two sat frozen in time. Neither said a word as the fire burned itself out. Hermione glanced at the object in his lap, the Marauders Map. She looked up and found he was staring at her. She quickly drew her eyes away.

"Um, well, I suppose I should get back to bed." She got to her feet and started to walk away.

"Hey." She turned around, eyes hopeful, mentally scolding herself for reacting to his call so fast.

"Yes?"

"Madame Trapner usually keeps some potions for dreamless sleep in the hospital wing. You should talk to her, you know, if there's anything you need…" He let the sentence hang and held her gaze for just a second before he turned his attention back to the map. His words were comforting for Hermione, but his tone was still cold and distant. She stood there, staring at this boy who had been through so much already and still had so much to face. She smiled sadly before climbing the stairs to her bed.

"Thank you, Sirius."

A/N: *A Sick Man's Dreams/Troubled Dreams