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The week leading up to the Halloween Ball went surprisingly quick for Hermione. Severus remained evasive. He still had not returned to their evenings spent in the library, although Hermione would regularly wait for him at their table. In class he wouldn't answer her questions, ignoring her to the point of almost driving her insane.
She wondered if he believed it to be her fault over the whole James/hospital fiasco. A notion that she quickly deemed as ridiculous since their feuds had famously existed before her, but a concern would hit her like a bludger every now and again, being beaten away with a stick only to zoom back, hitting her hard again when he would avoid her gaze and knock her hands away from their cauldron.
The only time he had even spoken to her that wasn't deemed strictly necessary by the class they were in was to make a disparaging comment about her hair ending with "I liked it better the other way."
Hermione sensitively patted her hair (finding all curls in place, for a change) and for a moment actually considering putting it back to normal. But remembering how everyone else had had nothing but compliments for her newly controlled bouncy mop, considered the fact that he was only trying to make a swipe at her and although this reassured her vanity (not that she would normally be called vain) it hardly made her feel better.
Nevertheless Hermione would spend an hour or so after dinner in the library, watching the doors, hoping that he would walk right on through, that the last few lonely weeks had only been a figment of her imagination.
Resigned and alone, Hermione would then make her way back to Gryffindor Tower (when the hallways were still quite full of meandering students) and spend the rest of her evening with Remus, who would have spent the time of her absence attending to his own schoolwork.
Her troubles and guilty mind induced by Severus' continual absence would melt away with only a smile from Remus.
She had barely thought of her life and friends of her own time over the last few days, Remus' presence inducing her to relax so much so that she even forgot to be mindful of 'slip-ups'. It was as if she had reasoned that even if only by the amount of time she had spent in the past (which seemed to be ever stretching) would have been enough already changed to have changed her known future as consequence if only by her mere presence. Surely, she argued to the waxing moon as she lay upon her bed teetering on the elusive edge of sleep, Sirius is NOT that unobservant to not have noticed I bared an uncanny resemblance to another Hermione Granger, even at the age of 13? And she certainly didn't presume him to be that good at keeping a secret.
It must have been this relaxed state that she had wandered upon that had drawn her attention away from the fact that she was almost nearly dating a married man (even if it had 20 years to happen).
She was snapped (rather harshly) back into this reality when, one morning before the upcoming ball, Lily flaunted a pair of dress robes in a strikingly familiar shade of horrid pink
The material fluttered in her face like waves crashing onto Hermione's happiness, as Lily extended the robes for Hermione to take.
Ears full of a horrible buzzing that blocked out all other sound, including Lily's voice, for she assumed the girl was talking by the way her jaw was moving up and down, it took her a moment to realise Lily intended the robes for Hermione to wear.
As if she had just realised the robes were not made of material but of woven deadly snakes, Hermione leapt backwards away from the dress, tumbling over her bed which had been closer than she had calculated.
Rubbing her throbbing head, which she had hit on the bed poster in her tumble, Hermione quickly tried to amend her actions seeing the hurt expression of the red head girl in front of her now cradling the robes to her chest in a protective manner.
Hermione didn't know how to explain her actions and in retrospect looking back on that day could never rightly remember what she had said, but whatever her muddled mind had chose to spurt the girl had seemed to accept, brightening up and pulling out a much more acceptable pair of turquoise dress robes, in the process admitting that she was glad Hermione didn't like them anyway, because they were her favourite.
Hermione, always being a little bit selfish – being an only child after all, was so surprised to hear this she couldn't help asking why then Lily would offer them to her in the first place?
Lily had merely shrugged, saying that Hermione had someone to impress where as she didn't.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Hermione had returned playfully.
Lily, head still stuck in her closet, had turned to face Hermione now, hand on her hip and eyebrow raised as if daring her to say his name.
Hermione took the challenge with glee.
"You know James has asked you to the ball 25 times now by my count –"
She was cut off by a shoe, thrown with aim at her head.
"Hey," she complained, narrowly missing the shoe and picking up her pillow. "Shoes hurt," she whined throwing the pillow at Lily, who jumped across to reach her own.
Lily looked like she was about to return the fire, poised kneeling on the bed and pillow in hand, but before she had risen the pillow an inch from the bed she had slumped back down onto the covers, looking at the pillow case with dreary interest.
"Actually it's been 34."
It took Hermione a second to realise that she was referring to James.
"Oh Lils," Hermione sighed, empathetically.
"I think… I think I really like him My." Lily began slowly, eyes still downcast to the pillow in her hands.
Hermione waited, sensing there was more.
As if on cue, "It's just – it's like…"
She looked up a fierce determination set on her face.
"Everyone knows that he likes me. Everyone! I don't doubt really that, at least… perhaps, in the beginning… he might have.
"But now? I just really don't think so – it's like it has just become some… big game for him!" She waved her hands dramatically through the air to emphasize her point.
She became quiet, her frame drooping even lower.
Hermione moved from her bed over to her depressed friend. She put her hands on Lily's shoulders reassuringly and waited for Lily to look up at her.
"I don't think so," she said with a small smile.
…
In the end Lily hadn't totally agreed with Hermione, and she certainly wasn't ready to accept one of James' invitations (or wedding proposals, depending on his mood at the time) but Hermione did notice that she had started to receive them with a little more patience.
If Hermione had had her way she was sure that James and Lily could and would have been enjoying the happiness she was feeling with Remus at that moment but she was at least partly contented with Lily's improved James-tolerance that allowed them all to sit together in the common room for a full hour before seeing a single fight, said fight resulting in Lily storming off, indignant. Nevertheless an improvement.
As Lily's mane of fire disappeared up the staircase, James scowled annoyed at Sirius, who had caused the fight by bringing up a recent prank they had played on a Ravenclaw Prefect, sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth, making him unable to dock points from them on one of their night time prowls to the kitchens.
Hermione ignored them, uninterested in their pranks as long as they didn't cause serious harm, and turned to Remus who was sitting half behind her, book open in his lap.
"So do I get a flower for my hair?"
"A flower for your hair?" he replied clearly confused, looking up cautiously form his tome, wondering what he had forgotten.
"The ball of course," she smiled smugly.
His face dropped and he looked ashamedly guilty.
Her heart clenched, fear gripping tight at the thoughts of why he may be guilty.
"I was only joking Remus, you don't have to get me a flower –" she attempted bravely, but at the same time sure her shaky voice had given her away.
"No, no, it's nothing like that," reading through her as if she was made of nothing but glass.
She breathed out a small breath she had not been sure she had been holding, but the fist constricting her heart did not lessen its grip.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have kept putting it off for this long..."
She shook, despite his reassuring arms now wrapped around her from behind.
"I can't go to the ball; it's my aunt again –"
He didn't finish his sentence as the body he was holding struggled to turn, a tiny fist hitting his chest.
"You stupid git," she squealed. "Making me think – making me think – I don't know what!"
He laughed and pulled her close.
"So you're not upset?" he asked after a moment of contented silence.
"No." She answered simply, his arms rubbing up and down her sides making her shiver in a delightfully pleasant way.
"I don't think I'll go to the ball now though."
He looked at her curiously, tilting his head to the side.
"It wouldn't be any fun without you there of course," she admitted.
"Ahh but that's why one keeps devilishly attractive single friends close by," winked Sirius, across from where they sat and obviously listening to their conversation.