For hours, Hermione sat in the Room of Requirement trying to think of what her next plan of attack was, but everything that went through her head relied on Remus in some way or another. That spell that he had mentioned, was so far, the only way she could think of to figure out how to find out what and where Voldemort's Horcruxes were. The lack of progress bothered her greatly, a lot more than she'd willingly admit. She didn't know what else to do. She paced, she sat and stared into the fire, she read through books, tried to remember the order in which everything happened, but she soon realized that Harry didn't really tell her everything he knew. Dumbledore never really shared his secrets either, which wasn't all that surprising, considering.
History books didn't even have everything written down because who would remember all those names? She didn't know of any deaths until after the Marauders and Lily graduated and joined the Order, which Hermione was sure to join as well. Dumbledore wouldn't really try to reject her seeing as he knew that she was a member anyway. The great thing was though, if anyone in the Order were to doubt her, by the time the school year was over, there would be multiple people who would vouch for her. James, Sirius and Remus undoubtedly, but Regulus was sure to join with his brother and Severus was sure to join as well. And if all went well, Lucius might attempt to join privately like Severus did years later, though Hermione wasn't fond of the idea of that. She would have much preferred it if Lucius came to her and she acted as her spy's keeper, which was possible.
And that's when it hit her. Each person that she had talked to at lunch trusted her. If she were to suggest anything that may help with her cause they would follow her and support her, even if she started her own small organization; secretly of course. Everyone who wanted to join the Order would be able to, but only Hermione herself would be allowed to speak of any of their findings, and only she would be able to decide what was important enough to share. Ultimately, changing the future was her job. Fighting Voldemort and his Death Eaters was her current reason for living because she had people she needed to protect. She had lives she needed to change. Harry needed to have his parents, Neville needed his parents. Hermione needed someone in the Ministry to keep Fudge from taking office.
Hermione stood and shifted to her wolf form before leaving the room and heading towards the Great Hall, which was busy and loud as hundreds of voices laughed and talked together. She had two people she needed to find at the Slytherin table, and then she needed to steer Sirius away from dinner. She would talk with Remus after dinner, their planned time to meet, but she didn't have a planned time for Sirius and her to meet, and now was as good a time as any.
Hermione bounded over to the Slytherin table with greasy black hair in her line of sight. Nuzzling his side to get his attention, she kept her eyes on Severus with her mind open for him. 'I have something to do after dinner so I won't be able to be near you or Regulus. I need you two to stay together and do not draw any unwanted attention to yourselves,' Hermione pushed into his mind.
When he looked down, she saw his subtle nod before she turned and made her way to the Gryffindor table. Hermione mentally smirked when she saw Sirius flirting with a table mate and ran up, jumping partially onto the bench between the two and licked the side of his face. Sirius jumped and swore before looking into her playful, teasing eyes and started laughing. James and Remus watched her in amusement as she butted her face against his arm.
"Well, hello there, girl. What's got you so energetic, hmm?" Sirius teased. Hermione looked up into his eyes and pushed her message into his mind before jumping down and walking over to Remus slowly. She nuzzled his hand gently before looking up into his eyes. She then turned and left the Great Hall and waited for Sirius to follow her to the Room of Requirement.
"Well well well, you've known Remus for 24 hours and already you're dating him. You know Remus really doesn't date," Sirius said the moment he walked through the door.
Hermione shifted out of her animagus form. "Remus was quite persuasive."
"Ah, surprising, he's the culprit?"
Hermione laughed. "I fought him on it. I don't want him getting attached." Hermione sat down in front of the fire the room provided them. "I've known Remus Lupin since I was thirteen. I've always found him interesting and I was always able to hold an intelligent conversation with him, even if he was far older than me. It's strange seeing him this happy. It's a good change. I hope that he never becomes the man he was when I met him, a mere shadow of who he is now. By preventing James and Lily's deaths, Peter's pretend death, and your imprisonment, he should never lose the spark he has in him."
"You know, while I do so enjoy talking about my friend's relationship, which doesn't happen often, I highly doubt you brought me in here to discuss that part of your trip with me." Sirius sat in the recliner the room provided for him upon request.
"You're right. You know, people in the future don't give you enough credit. You know how to use that brilliant mind of yours, you just choose not to."
Sirius looked at her and raised his eyebrow. "People doubt my incredible mind? How shocking."
"Well, if you were serious from time to time, things might change a bit."
"Can't love, with a name like mine, you gotta joke from time to time. You don't want to be too serious all the time."
"I've heard better Sirius jokes from you over the years, that one just doesn't come close," Hermione smirked. "Anyway, I had an idea that I wanted to run by you. Since you, Remus and Severus are the only people who know I'm from the future. I'm meeting Remus later and I stay in Severus' dorm, so I'll be talking to him later tonight about this before getting all of you together."
"Wait...you're staying in Snivellus' dorm? Does Remus know?"
"Remus knows that I'm currently playing watch dog for two people who were expected to become Death Eaters, only to suddenly change their minds. They look like traitors to their house. I'm protecting them. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Just wondering, don't get so defensive. Continue."
"You, James and Remus will undoubtedly be joining the Order of the Phoenix when you leave Hogwarts, but our Slytherin accomplices won't be permitted to join us because they are known supporters of Voldemort. They won't really care that they've switched sides because the Order is just as prejudiced as Voldemort is, but instead of attacking muggleborns or half bloods, they attack Slytherins regardless of their beliefs."
Sirius nodded. "I hate admitting it, but it's true. I do admit that I have a hard time accepting Slytherins as anything other than Death Eaters in the making, but even I know that most of them are only following him because they feel as if they have no other choice. Slytherins stand by those they believe are going to win in the end. They see Voldemort as having all this power, so in their minds Voldemort is most likely the victor." Sirius looked over at Hermione again. "What's your point though?"
"Starting our own organization," Hermione said bluntly. Sirius gave her a confused look. "Our own version of the Order. Any of you who are able to join the Order of the Phoenix are welcome to, but only I am allowed to discuss anything regarding our group, and only I decide what to disclose. Each of us will have our own role, but our Order won't be for lining up in the front lines to take him down, which you can do so if you wish because you will most likely be a part of the Order of the Phoenix too. I want our Order to be more to do with research and spies, and I want to get people into the Ministry to keep their eyes and ears open. I also need at least one person who is in both the Order and the Ministry on my side. I need to prevent Cornelius Fudge from becoming Minister because without him in power, maybe we won't have such a dunderhead not believing the truth because he's too scared to admit it's a possibility."
"You're adorable when you're frustrated," Sirius smirked. Hermione threw a pillow at him.
"I'm being serious!"
"You're not doing a very good job." Hermione lifted another pillow to throw at him. "Ok, ok, calm down. James and I have plans on becoming Aurors after Hogwarts, we can help you via the Ministry. Your idea sounds good, but you are going to have to get everyone else on board and figure out what you want to do with it. You have my full support though."
"Thanks, Padfoot," Hermione smiled.
"You know, I think I'm going to give you a Marauder nickname." Sirius sat up and watched her, deep in thought. "You're a wolf, but not a werewolf. You're a mate for a werewolf so in some way you are a child of the moon. I know!" Sirius exclaimed. "Moonpaw!"
"It has potential, but what about Moony? Moonpaw and Moony would both be shortened to Moon or whatever."
"You're right." Sirius looked down, obviously disappointed.
"Shadowpaw," Hermione suggested.
"That's it!" Sirius exclaimed. "Shadowpaw and Moony! Both wolves, both shrouded in mystery! Love it."
"Well, now that all matters of business are over, go away."
"But why, Shadow?"
"Because I'm meeting Remus in a few minutes and I would really like to discuss this with him, I'm also hoping that he has that book."
"Jeeze Hermia, don't have too much fun," Sirius teased, but stood up to leave anyway. "With a nickname comes an automatic place in our circle. Just so you know." And with that, Sirius left the room.
Hermione smiled as she watched the door close behind him. Remus was going to be coming through those very doors soon, but she still had planning to work on. Hermione didn't really want to rely on Remus the entire time, she never relied on others, it just didn't sit well with her. So having to rely on him for that spell was quite bothersome. Then again, she probably could do the research herself, but he knew the book, it would take less time for him and then they could get all the planning underway.
She was so lost in thought that Hermione didn't even notice when the doors to the Room of Requirement opened, revealing a smiling Remus. When Remus noticed she was lost in thought, he tried to make noise as he walked over to her, but somehow he still startled her when he laid his hands on her shoulders.
"You scared me!" Hermione accused.
"I didn't mean to," Remus defended. "You were lost in thought when I came in, I tried making noise but you were too far gone. What were you thinking about anyway?" Remus sat down beside her and threw his arm over the back of the couch. Hermione chuckled at how relaxed he seemed around her already. She had known him for five years and he never let loose like this around her.
"The fact that I feel utterly useless right now." Remus raised his eyebrow at her, but she cut him off before he could say anything. "I know I've saved a few lives already, but I am going to have to keep working to save those lives until after that date passes. My only plan of attack right now relies on you finding that spell, and while I can technically do it myself, it would take less time for you to find it than it would me, seeing as you know what book to look for." Hermione looked up at him. "Which brought me to my next course of action, which I've discussed with Sirius already seeing as you, Severus and Sirius are the only ones who know I'm from the future." Remus watched her curiously, waiting for her to continue. Hermione looked into the fire for a second before looking back up at him. "After graduation, you, James, Lily, and Sirius will all join the Order of the Phoenix. As will I, but those who are in Slytherin won't be able to join for the simple fact that they are Slytherins."
"I hate admitting that it's true. I've never really had a problem with the Slytherins, there are a few that I've had rather fascinating conversations with. Most of the Order doesn't realize that not all of them are born evil though."
"Exactly. Half the time, the Slytherins haven't gotten a single evil thought in their heads when they are sorted, they are swayed by pure blood loyalists, or shaped into the people they are because of the prejudice they get from all the other Houses. Lucius isn't evil, Narcissa on her worst day wasn't evil either. They just acted the way they had to to protect their son and themselves. Bellatrix was evil, the worst sort, I will admit that. But Regulus turned in the end because he didn't have the heart for any of that. And Severus...Severus loves Lily with his every fiber. When he discovered her life was in danger, he put his life on the line to make sure she would be safe. And when she died, a bit of himself died with her, but he fought on to protect her son so that a part of her survived the world." Remus nodded. "I want to start our own Order," Hermione whispered, staring into the fire.
"Okay," Remus encouraged.
"Not an Order of fighters preparing for the front line, but a group of people working from the shadows; spies, informants, researchers. I want members of the Order in our group, I want Ministry officials involved. I have at least one Death Eater involved and I plan on finding more who were forced to join. I'm sure there are a few. I just don't really know who they are. Most of the Inner Circle are completely loyal, and no one pays attention to anyone else. The Outer Circle isn't deemed worthy of mention, but I have to try to get others from the inside."
"The idea has merit. I just don't know how Sirius and James would handle being in a group full of Slytherins," Remus admitted.
"That's what I dragged Sirius away to talk about. He supports the idea fully because he's able to understand that not all Slytherins are bad."
"Yeah, but he's right up there with anyone else when it comes to criticizing the Slytherins. I wouldn't take his acceptance to heart."
"I admit, even when I met him he had a hard time accepting Severus in the Order. However, he had spent twelve years in Azkaban because of Severus and Pettigrew, and before that the four of you and Severus did nothing but fight throughout school. He is able to recognize that in the privacy of this room though, Slytherins are accepted and they are different towards the rest of us. Once we were in this room, the Slytherins were painfully polite, but they didn't make a single bad remark towards any of you. They didn't do anything to put themselves in a bad light."
"That was one time though. That was a single hour of forced acceptance."
"You have so little faith in your friend Remus." Hermione looked up at him disapprovingly.
"Hermione, I've known Sirius Black since I was eleven. He is almost as prejudiced as any of the other Blacks, just to other people. He's not a pure blood fanatic, but he judges people on who their family or House is just as bad as the rest of them."
"Remus, when I met Sirius, he had just spent years in Azkaban and he died two years later. Yes, he was prejudiced, but for the greater good he was always willing to shove all of that aside and try to be at least half way pleasant." Hermione rose off of the couch and stood in front of the fire, looking at him. "I have full faith in him and the moment anyone pulls their wand out, I'm confiscating them. I can almost guarantee to all of you that my wand work is at least ten times better than all of you put together."
"And why do you say that?" Remus narrowed his eyes at her. Hermione didn't mean to make that sound like an insult, but he had her too worked up to even care. Hermione yanked the sleeve of her left arm up to show him her forearm.
"This is what I lived through," she snapped.
Remus paled and looked almost sick as he stared at the scar on her arm. The word "mudblood" stared up at him, looking freshly healed and bright red.
"This was carved into my arm on the parlor floor of Malfoy Manor," Hermione hissed. "By none other than Narcissa's sister Bellatrix, and that is not the only mark that that woman left on me on the floor of that manor. I have scars up and down my arms and legs and I have internal scarring from an over exposure to the Cruciatus Curse. Because of that woman, I will never be able to have a normal life. Because of that woman, I will never be physically able to have children of my own. Because of that woman, my fiancé and I have struggled for the last three years, because he can't bear to look at me without my clothes on. Any time he even dreamed of touching me he had to turn the lights off so he couldn't see what that woman did to me."
Remus had tears streaming down his face by that point and Hermione was breathing heavily, trying not to break down and cry right there. Remus looked down at his hands and nodded, if anyone had any right to be prejudiced to these people it was Hermione; but she stood tall and was willing to fight all of them and stand up for some, all for the sake of saving peoples' lives. She wouldn't run, he knew that, it wasn't who she was. She carried those scars on her body every day, and forced herself to show some kind of happiness to the world, even though he could see that half of it was faked.
"Lucius, Narcissa and their son were there. They watched all of this happen to me and if I can put aside my prejudices towards people who actually caused harm to me, then Sirius can shove his aside for people who haven't laid a hand on him," Hermione whispered. "Fenrir Greyback was there as well." Remus' head shot up with an angry glint in his eyes. "He's the one that dragged me across their parlor floor by my hair." Hermione knelt down in front of Remus and laid her hand on his cheek. "I accept you, even if I know that one wrong move and I could get hurt easily. Even after being dragged into the torture chamber by another werewolf, I still accept you. Even after having myself carved into, I still stand for those who have hurt me, knowing its the right thing to do. Even after every time I look at Narcissa, I see her telling Bellatrix to use Unforgivables on me, because she didn't want my dirty blood on the floor. If anyone has any right to be prejudiced, it's me. But I don't let my past rule my head. You have to have faith that Sirius can put it aside as well."
When Hermione saw that she wasn't going to get a response, or any movement from Remus, she sighed before standing up and shifting to her animagus form. She looked over her shoulder as she walked to the door and saw the tears flowing down his cheeks openly. She would allow him this, this privacy to mourn what little of his innocence would be taken from him within the next three years. She would let him decide what he wanted to do. She wasn't afraid of him turning from her because of her scars. She had enough of that from Ron. Hermione couldn't help it, she would have those angry letters engraved in her arm for the rest of her life, and because the knife was cursed, they would always look fresh.
The door closed behind her and she ran. She tore through the castle, passing students as she went. Hermione didn't care, she had to get away. She threw herself out of the castle doors and down to the Black Lake where she howled her fury and misery. She never let it get to her, the scars, the pain of her past, the failed relationship between Ron and herself. She even tried to ignore that she had been thrown back in time by twenty years, just so she could fight again. But throwing her scars out there, delving into the history that Hermione refused to live through every day, tore open the wounds inside and she couldn't hold back anymore. Nothing was right, she only knew very few people in this time and most of them were people who had wanted her dead in her own time. And now, here she was fighting for their futures. Fighting to keep them safe and to change the horrible fate that had been placed upon them because of their actions.
Hermione shifted back to her human form and collapsed into a sobbing heap in the grass. For seven years she lived with being called a filthy, little mudblood. For seven years she had to fight for her very right to hold a wand with the rest of them. None of it was fair. It wasn't her choice to have been born magical, she couldn't just choose to turn it off either. The magic was a part of her. But because of her magic, she was scarred, her parents were lost to her, she was stuck in a time that didn't belong to her and she had her life cut short by several years, all for the sake of half of the people who caused her the pain that she lived in now. She didn't have her friends to stand by her anymore because they were all twenty years into the future and they didn't know who she was anymore. She had changed too much already.
Hermione felt someone sit beside her, they never touched, and she never looked up to see which of the three would even bother. She stayed silent and so did he, for the most part. But both knew that silence really couldn't last.
"I figured I'd find you here," Sirius' voice spoke from beside her.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered, never looking up.
"Remus hunted me down and asked me to find you. Said he didn't know how to face you right now. Had to work through some stuff first." Sirius looked at the girl with her face buried in her arms. She always looked so brave to him, always witty in her responses, always ready to fight for what she felt was right. It was hard seeing Hermione so broken up, her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms burying her face. Her hair was frizzier than he'd ever seen it, which made him wonder if her hair was hardwired to her emotions.
"I can't imagine being in a different timeline. I can only compare it to being dragged to another country with no access to anyone you had ever known."
"Something like that," Hermione sniffled.
"Must be difficult knowing most of us, but seeing us as if looking through another's memories." Sirius reached over to lift her face to look at him.
Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown, showing the depth of her every emotion and her face was red and tear stained. She had definitely been out here a while.
"You have to know though, that we are here for you. Even those Slytherins in there are. It's not often that any of us, including the Slytherins, come across someone who is willing to put their life on the line for us. The only people who have ever been willing to do that for me are James and Remus. My own family deserted me and hoped for my death every day. Hell, Lily's biggest known dream for the last six years has always been for James to fall off his broom, or drown in the Black Lake," Sirius chuckled. Hermione smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "My point is, you can lean on all of us. I can't say much about the Slytherins, because those aren't a very emotional bunch, but you can come to James and I, and Remus when he gets his head out of his arse and talks to you." This time Hermione did laugh. "What's going on with you two anyway?"
Hermione looked out over the lake before sighing. "I told him my idea and while he supports me, he started going on about how he wasn't sure how you'd fare with all the Slytherins. I defended you and he fought back."
"He has a point. I still have no idea how I'm going to handle being around Slytherins regularly."
"Yes, but you are mature enough to ignore your personal prejudices enough if it means defending other people." Hermione looked up at him with fire in her eyes. "Remus doesn't see that. He sees the mask that you put on, the playful and prejudiced version of yourself. Not the one who matures in the space of a minute for the greater good. I see it, but I don't know how many of your friends would."
"They've never seen it because I never really wanted them to."
"Why?"
"Because I try to hide from being a Black," Sirius said simply. Hermione nodded, only vaguely understanding what he meant. "That can't be what's got Remus so haunted though and I highly doubt you'd be out here alone, crying for my sake."
Hermione sighed, and stood up. Sirius followed. "Get James and Remus to the seventh floor. I'm going to go get the Slytherins. We are going to have an emergency history lesson, or rather future lesson." Hermione didn't bother looking back at him to make sure he understood, she simply shifted into her wolf form and made her way to the Slytherin common room, where all four Slytherin's were undoubtedly waiting for her.
