a/n: Another short chapter, but I hope you guys like it anyway :)
Hermione immediately panics and then anger rears up inside of her. How dare Lily go to take the magic test without waking her first.
One of her roommates comes in at that moment, toweling her wet hair. When she sees Hermione sitting up in bed, she stops in her tracks.
"You're awake."
"Of course I am." Hermione looks over at the clock. She's actually overslept. Still, isn't it early for the professors to begin testing students? Most haven't even had breakfast yet. "Has Lily gone to take the test?"
"Lily…" There's a curious expression on the girl's face as she lowers her hands. "Lily was sent to St. Mungo's. She woke us all up at around five am, throwing up and having fits of pain. It was really scary. None of the other girls were in as much pain."
A heavy sickness balls up in Hermione's stomach; she's scared she'll throw up right there. "Why didn't any of you wake me?" she somehow manages to whisper.
"We did. We were shaking you and everything but you just wouldn't budge. That was also scary. It was like you were comatose or something."
It's all Hermione's fault, and Lily is the one suffering because Hermione has been too selfish to speed up her researching process. She has become entranced with the light emitting from the Marauders, by her feelings for James, and now Lily is paying the price.
Hermione is ashamed of herself. Here she is, setting deadlines weeks away for herself to start finding a solution. She needs to figure out what happened now. She can't wait until Christmas break any longer to have undisrupted research time. Hermione needs help, and in this time era there's only one person she can go ask – Dumbledore.
Hermione spends the day planning everything out, when she'll go and what she'll say. She realizes that if she does talk to Dumbledore and if he even believes her, he may not let her return to classes or to the common room to say goodbye to James or the others. So before Hermione even thinks of going to see Dumbledore, she thinks of how she can say goodbye to James.
"Meet me in the common room tonight and bring your invisibility cloak," Hermione tells James at dinner that night. It's been a very long day and there are conspicuous empty seats at the table of every House where students – girls, all girls – should have been. Others have made the connection now too, and the running whispers are that there's a Muggle-hating misogynist on the loose in Hogwarts. If only they knew.
"Do you really think we'll find anything new?" Even James and Sirius look dejected. All Quidditch has been cancelled, but Hermione knows they don't care about that in the least. They'd actually cancelled their practice last night before Professor McGonagall announced a hiatus on the whole season this morning at breakfast.
Lily's absence from their group that evening hangs over them like a black cloud of death. The sit at their usual spot in the common room, but tonight there's no joking or laughing or even small talk. Sirius is actually doing homework - perhaps to honor Lily's memory, Hermione thinks – and James just stares at the fireplace, seemingly lost in thought.
Students trickle upstairs fairly early that evening. Everyone is emotionally drained, and even though Hermione suspects most of them will stay awake all night staring up at the ceiling and thinking of how Hogwarts has lost its charm now that their friends aren't around, it's at least better than pretending to be busy in the common room.
James goes up to his dorm room at one point to get his invisibility cloak, and when the last student has finally gone upstairs to bed they say goodnight to Sirius who's still scratching away at his roll of parchment and slip on the invisibility cloak.
"Where are we going?" James whispers when Hermione deviates from the path to the library.
She doesn't answer, but leads him along.
"Granger, you do know that there's nothing up here?" he whispers when they've reached the seventh floor.
Hermione feels rather silly as she forces James to walk past the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy three times, but on the third time a door appears and James stares slack-jawed at her.
"What in the bloody hell…"James trails off as Hermione opens the door and ushers them inside.
The room is just like how Hermione wanted. It's not a very big room, but there's a crackling fireplace at one end with a big cushiony-looking couch and then a large king-sized bed with a hundred pillows and a deep red blanket.
James has taken the invisibility cloak off and places it over the arm of the couch. "Did you plan all of this?"
Hermione shrugs and smiles. In a way, she supposes she did. "I just wanted us to be alone." She feels like she needs to explain, so James doesn't get the wrong impression that Hermione is expecting anything. "Especially after today, I thought we could use some time with just the two of us somewhere that's not the Restricted Section or outside." Or the kitchens, with the House Elves peering at them curiously with their bulging, watery eyes.
"I know what happened to Lily must be hardest on you." James turns to her and hugs her, and his fingers caress her hair. He can't run his fingers through the strands because of her curls, but he seems to enjoy just delicately touching her hair, like his fingertips are getting to know her. Hermione likes the feeling of his hands against her hair.
She wonders if James heard about how no one had been able to wake her up when Lily had been having a fit of pain. If he has, he doesn't bring it up and Hermione is so grateful that he doesn't. She wonders what it all means, if this is really a disease or something more ominous, something that really does have no cure, even her departure. Warghollow did not mention replying to his friend's letter, and Hermione didn't have enough time to read through the whole memoir and find out if Warghollow ever returned to those villages and if his effect on the peoples in them had any permanent and lasting damage.
James holds her tightly for a long time, and Hermione finds that even though her mind wanders in his embrace, her thoughts don't evoke panic like they usually do. James holds her down, steadies her physically and emotionally.
Eventually, James stirs. First, he kisses her forehead and then he tilts her head back and kisses her softly, and then more deeply when Hermione opens to his request. They kiss slowly; James' hands move over her chest, her waist and her back, and Hermione sighs into the kiss, presses up against his body for more.
James pulls away to pull Hermione's robe over her head and Hermione returns the favor. They press up against each other, naked except for their underwear, letting their hands explore each other's bodies and their lips convey their feelings.
At one point, James steers Hermione over to the bed and pulls back the covers. There's no passionate lust that makes Hermione's mind go hazy and unable to make the right decision. It's a slow, building accumulation of feelings and love that makes her knowingly and willingly get on the bed and spread her arms to pull James down on top of her.
Even if this is wrong, it feels right, and Hermione doesn't second-guess herself. James doesn't ask if she's sure, if she's ready. He's gentle and careful, but neither of them says a word. They let their bodies guide each other and intimately communicate their feelings.
"You should come to my place for the Winter holiday."
Hermione's lying on her back and James is lying snug up against her, one elbow propped to hold his head up as he draws circles on Hermione's abdomen.
Hours have gone by since they've entered the room and now Hermione feels her eyelids drooping. The heat from the fireplace and the warmth from James' body are making her sleepy.
"Mmm," Hermione smiles softly, imaging herself meeting Mr. and Mrs. Potter, being introduced as James' girlfriend, sleeping in his bed, and even further, spending lazy, hot summer days window-shopping together in Diagon Alley, meeting up with Remus and Sirius and Lily who's gotten better. All things Hermione will never do but will dream of long after she's gone and James is dead. "That would be lovely," she whispers, feeling herself drifting off.
"It would be. So you'll come?" James' soft voice washes over her and Hermione just smiles. She can't lie to James but she can't refuse him and shatter the moment. James is persistent though. "Hermione?"
Hermione shoots up, nearly slamming her head against James' who only manages to pull back at the last second.
"What did you call me?"
James looks sheepish. "That's your name, isn't it? Hermione Granger."
"H-how…"
"Please don't be angry. I thought you would tell me eventually, but you've never brought it up. I have a map, you see… Sirius, Remus and I created a map of Hogwarts and then we charmed it, and we can see where everyone is on it at all times and it shows their name. You show up as Hermione Granger."
Of course, the Maurader's Map. Hermione should have remembered, but they hadn't brought it up and she hadn't even questioned that her real name would show up. She tries to think fast. "Gabrielle is my middle name," she says. "I prefer it."
James looks so guilty that Hermione takes his hand and moves in closer to him and kisses his cheek. "You can call me Hermione," she whispers. "I like the way you say it."
James hugs her and then pulls them back down onto the bed. He kisses her cheek and her neck and Hermione lets herself drift off in his embrace. She thinks, at one point during the night when her mind is heavy and slow with sleep, that James is still holding her and that he's whispering in her ear. "Hermione. I love you." But she drifts off again and in the morning, when she wakes up and James is rolled up in the blankets away from her, the words echo in the back of her mind like a vague memory and Hermione isn't sure if she heard or dreamt them.