Hermione, Sirius, James and Pettigrew were sitting in the third-year boys' dormitory on James' bed, silence swamping them. Pettigrew's eyes were massive as they darted between Sirius and James, begging for a denial. Hermione's stomach flopped, her vision darkening as his tremulous squeaking sent her mind to another room with another bed in a different house…
"What are we going to do?" James finally voiced the question.
"What do you mean?" Sirius bristled.
"He's dangerous to us!" Pettigrew squealed. Hermione felt a stab of pleasure at the glower James and Sirius both turned on him.
"Siri, I didn't mean it like that, I meant…I meant we followed him to help him, right?" James reclaimed attention from the unfortunate Peter. "So how are we going to help?"
"We can't help, James." The other boy looked older in the face of this unexpected, total defeat. "Lycanthropy is incurable. And often fatally dangerous to humans."
"We can help," James argued.
"No. There are some facts of life that cannot be made better by wishing, no matter how hard we try. The best thing to do is not tell him we know," Sirius rebutted quietly. He took a deep breath. "It'll be like it always was."
"No, it won't, Sirius," James replied softly, but with the edge that his son would inherit and would later save his Harry's life many times. "We can't pretend. And we shouldn't try. It would be mean to fake it. You know that. He deserves to know. And he needs our help. There must be something we can do- anything."
"The best Healers have been working on it for centuries, James. What can we do?" Sirius pressed. "Merlin knows I'd be glad to help Remus in any way we can, but this is not some malady that can be waved away with a wand!"
James stood up and shrugged, then turned to Hermione. "You spend all your time in the library, 'Mione. Will you help us find something?"
"I can look," she promised carefully- was it her place to find their solution for them? "But Sirius is right. Lycanthropy is one of the most extensively researched and experimented fields, and all to no avail."
"If we don't look, we'll never know," James stood up. "I'm going to the library."
888
Hermione crouched at the entrance to the teacher's wing. Everyone except for the Heads of Houses, who had to be accessible to their students, and Dumbledore, lived in the same wing. And any guests the school had been required to accommodate over the years had been lodged in this same place- at least according to Hogwarts, A History.
She waited impatiently beneath James' invisibility cloak for a teacher to come through and give her access. She had left the boys frantically leafing through every book she could pull off the shelves that related to lycanthropy- and a few choice ones on human transfiguration. They should be able to put two and two together on that.
Her muscles ached as she held still, trying to keep her breathing even as her legs trembled from squatting too long. She had been waiting nearly an hour.
One hour ticked slowly into an hour and a half and still she waited, silent and invisible, cursing the driving curiosity that held her there, wishing that she had never attended Slughorn's dinner to fuel her need to discover. But mysterious visitors at the school had never once been for the purpose stated. Umbridge had made 'inspections'- but that had been a power play by the Ministry. Inspectors. What was that supposed to mean? It could mean anything, and while it had been clear that Malfoy didn't know, much to her relief, it had been equally clear that the Zabini twins did. Hermione hated not having access to information that others possessed. She thrived on piecing the puzzle together, her intelligence long since bent to using logic to survive. And she knew nothing of the Zabinis. Blaise was her year, a Slytherin, tall, arrogant, chocolate-skinned and beautiful, his mother one of the most stunning witches of Africa and clearly not one of these two fair-skinned, dark-haired girls. But his cool demeanor did not add to her lacking impetus to trust one of his family, even if their connection turn out to be distant.
Professor Vector came quickly round the corner, interrupting her musing, and she stood swiftly as her teacher murmured the password and the stone rippled, revealing a door. She opened it, Hermione hard on her heels, and the girl slipped through right as the door closed with a snick.
Holding her breath to keep it from echoing in the corridor, Hermione stopped as her professor continued, marveling at the scene before her.
This hall was clearly one of the many places in Hogwarts that was bigger inside than out. The floor gleamed, tiled with white marble, unlike the stone of the rest of the castle, and a narrow channel of water shimmered blue-green down the center of the walk. She could see Professor Vector, standing on the shallow stream and drifting quickly down the hall until she turned and stepped off- presumably at her room, and was lost behind a red-veined marble column. The pillars stood out from gold-run marble that sparkled on the walls and banked the heavy mahogany doors with their burnished copper doorknobs. Overhead, arches curved to set on top of the columns, crowned by the ceiling painted with spells, inscriptions and scenes.
Even as she watched, the scene closest to her morphed like the ceiling in the Great Hall to show a girl, bent over and watchful beneath a diaphanous fabric and sneaking forward- her eyes widened. It was her. And the inscription near it twisted from Latin to English, spelling quite clearly: Intruder.
Then the alarm screamed.
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"Where's Hermione? I can't find anything useful," James sighed, slamming a book shut.
"Here's something! A werewolf is only dangerous to people!" Sirius pushed a book triumphantly in front of his friends. The page was an illumination of a werewolf hunting, rabbit hopping merrily alongside it. James snorted.
"Okay. But as none of us are exactly rabbits and we are human, I fail to see how that matters."
Sirius' face fell. "There has to be something…there has to be a way. Maybe there's a spell or a potion that could make him think we're animals or…" he trailed off, but left the book open to that page as he lifted another and started thumbing through.
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Five different heads poked out from their quarters, the doors sliding open at the same time as if planned.
"I thought no one was coming until tonight!"
"Don't be ridiculous. They haven't come, Kettleburn, it's a student," Vector replied sharply. "Must've slipped in right after I did. I can't believe I didn't see them."
Hermione glared at the ceiling, which was now detailing her frightened hunch, the cloak shimmering gossamer over her body- not hiding it, but betraying her. Taking a deep breath, she did the only think she could think of. She stepped onto the river.
The water held her, and slithered her past her five bewildered professors who were checking behind columns, rapping on doors and testing knobs, past every door with a polished plate stating the name and job of the professor who occupied those rooms. When one after another the doors came more quickly and were labeled "Guest Rooms" she stepped off, pressed herself against a column and listened to the now-distant voices.
"Must've gone right back out," a female voice was saying.
"I thought the door locked them in automatically?"
"No- we were thinking of adding that precaution and decided not to. An extra expense for warding that we had no wish to incur. Someone felt it wouldn't be a- what did you call it, Hooch? 'A foolish expenditure for something we would never use?'"
"For five students a year? A waste," Hermione heard Hooch snap.
"Well, I don't see anyone, and none of these doors are unlocked except those we just came out of," came the gentle voice trying to steer them back onto the important topic.
"They could have slipped into one of our rooms."
"Yes, but then they will shortly be discovered and punished anyway- not exactly a way out."
"Why would they be in here? There is never anything in this wing that a student would care about."
"It's where we live. Doubtless they're hoping to find grades or confiscated items."
"Well, if they're gone we'll never know," Kettleburn sighed heavily.
"We could just look at the ceiling," Vector offered. Hermione cursed under her breath. Then again, why have the enchantment if not for exactly this reason?
"I don't see anything in the entryway…" their voices came to a low murmur as they presumably studied the ceiling painting.
"Strange…they must have slipped out by now." Hermione's breath burst in relief, a long sigh covered by the flowing water.
"I still can't imagine what a student would really want in here. All of my grades and everything stay in my office."
Vector's smooth voice cut across the babble. "I suspect this student wanted more than papers. Remember who comes tonight?"
"But the students haven't been told yet." This remark was greeted by a marked silence until Madam Hooch hissed angrily.
"Didn't Horace have one of those blasted dinners last night or two nights ago?"
Kettleburn groaned. "Yes. And you know he'll say anything if he's had too much, and Lucius Malfoy is snake enough to pump him for it successfully." A snort of laughter from one of the others.
"Unsuccessfully," Vector countered. "Why else send someone?"
"You think he would have?"
Hermione leaned around the pillar as the voices got quieter and she heard only snatches of their conversation.
"-private material-" "-very sensitive, I can't believe he would open his mouth-" "-"Something should be done about that…" "Malfoy a detention…" "-can't prove a bloody thing-" "Headmaster made it quite clear, I think-" "No student can know why they're here-" "Come to think of it, I'm not sure I know why myself…"
The murmur turned into silence. And then, "Well- at least there's no harm done," Vector's voice reached Hermione's ears clearly. "There's nothing here that they could discover anyway." Faint noises of a agreement, the sound of feet on stone as the teachers dispersed in front of her, leaving the grand hall empty.
Hermione sighed in frustration. The guest rooms were indeed all locked, and she dared not try to charm them open for fear of setting off another alarm. She stepped back on the shallow river and let it carry her to the door, which fortunately had not locked her in and needed no passwords for exiting, and closed the wood behind her, watching it become stone once more before shoving the cloak into her bag and starting for the library, cursing her complete waste of time. So much for independent research. She would have to think of a way to approach the Zabini sisters.
888
"Tonight, we have some guests I would like you to welcome!" Dumbledore stood from his high-backed chair, glass in hand as if proposing a toast. The students, all anticipating dinner, silenced their chatter and turned their attention from their empty plates to the aging headmaster.
"Please welcome Messrs Mroczek, Scheck, Praha, Blevshik and Shova." A polite smattering of applause as five wizards dressed in identical red robes swept in from the side door to take five extra seats at the high table. James and Sirius next to her were embroiled in a heated argument that was nevertheless almost silent, all arm waving and frantic whispers- probably about a solution for Remus. However, at the Slytherin table, Hermione could see Narcissa whispering to a friend, Mafloy's mouth at Macnair's eagerly-listening-ear, the heads of the Zabini twins inclined together and Snape watching the five avidly, as if he could glean something from the swish of their robes.
As she watched him, his gaze turned slowly, raking the table, until his eyes met hers. To her surprise they locked, he blushed and quickly jerked his head away, returning his attention to the men.
Hermione frowned. Several weeks of being gazed through as thoroughly as if she were invisible had been not only unpleasant, but frustrating when she knew she absolutely had to get him to listen to her. For him to be looking at her, and then so guiltily jerk away… none of her thoughts were charitable or comforting. Her professor twenty years from now always knew more than he should, somehow, as if he had a direct line of information tapped directly from the stones of the castle itself. Was he no different as a boy? Did he know of her foray into the teacher's wing? The only time she knew he had paid her mind before this was after Slughorn's dinner a few nights ago- watching her exchange with Malfoy.
"…for the short time our guests are in attendance, I expect all of you to display the manners so carefully taught by your loving parents!" Dumbledore was finishing his speech, all kindliness, eyes a-sparkle with good humor. His five companions did not seem to share it however, Hermione noted as they pulled out their chairs and lowered themselves into them with matching stiffness, expressions unreadable as a dentists' holiday card, and food started appearing on the tables.
"See- he told us himself," Lily nudged Hermione with her elbow. "All that maneuvering last night on Malfoy's part was wasted time." Hermione could only nod, having missed the crucial part where he explained what the men were actually doing.
In spite James and Sirius' palpable frustration mingled with excitement and Malfoy's too-bright eyes as he studied the newcomers, Hermione could not focus neither on the odd visitors or her friend. Instead, she kept stealing discreet glances at the Slytherin table, knowing that Sirius and James would not notice her suddenly new interest. But Snape did not oblige her by lifting his head or turning to face her again.
888
"Here." Sirius had books scattered over his bed, opened and earmarked, spines cracking as he flipped them over to tent them on a specific page. "Hermione- what do you think?"
"Where did you go?" James asked Hermione as Sirius frowned at a text, thumbed through it, found a picture he was looking for and arranged it next to another page from a different book.
"I had an errand to run. It was about the inspectors," came her purposefully vague reply.
"Yeah, that's weird," James muttered. "I don't remember ever having an inspection before. What do they-?"
"I'm done," Sirius announced. James instantly thrust all thoughts of inspections out if his head as he leaned over the books with Hermione. Sirius put one long finger on a yellowing parchment at the top of his haphazard display of dust, calligraphy and illuminations.
"Werewolves are dangerous only to humans," he started. "That's Point One. Point Two follows: Werewolves are not dangerous to anything else. Point Three: Humans, like all animals, like all objects, can transform. Point Four: It is safe for us to transform through methods like Polyjuice Potion, although that is only for human-to-human changing, and therefore not useful for practical application in this instance. Point Five: Lycanthropy has no cure, no vaccine and no moderators- at the moment, it is utterly uncontrollable, so we can't change Remus. Point Six: If we can find a method for becoming animals, that's our best solution."
888
"Hi, Remus," James greeted his friend cheerfully. Perhaps too cheerfully, for Remus lifted his head from the newspaper and frowned.
"What happened to you over the last forty-eight hours?" he asked, picking up his cup of coffee. "You're all awake. I go home for a day or two, suddenly James Potter is a morning person. And you haven't even touched caffeine."
"I guess this morning is just a good…morning," he finished lamely. "Don't worry- I promise I didn't go and turn over a new leaf on you."
"Hmmm. Pity, that. I could have used company."
"Hermione keeps you company," James waved it off airily.
"Where is she?" Remus twisted round, looking past and around his friend towards the double doors, as if hoping that James' voice had summoned her.
"Oh, you know, being a girl, brushing her hair, painting her nails- ouch!" James rubbed the back of his head and scowled at Hermione, who had snuck up behind him and slung her books at his back, hitting him and sliding a leg over the bench in a single, flawless movement.
"If you ever suggest that I would waste my time painting my nails again, James Potter, you'll have more than a Potions textbook collide with the back of your head." Remus was laughing, and James adopted a look of injury.
"Fine thing when my own mate won't warn me what's coming."
"Would have spoiled the fun."
"So…how was it?" Sirius asked, plunking down on Remus' other side. The brown-haired boy gave him a curious look.
"How was what?"
"You know…your thing you do."
Remus sat back, a pit forming in the middle of his stomach. Sirius' eyes were too bright, too alert for his friend at this hour, just as James' were. And Hermione had a look comprised of pity and worry on her face…
"You have never once called it 'your thing you do'," Remus whispered, pushing words past the fast-growing lump in his throat. "What do you know?"
"We know the truth," James' voice caused him to flinch, as if he had been physically stabbed from behind. James' hand descended on his friend's shoulder and squeezed. "It's okay, Remus."
"I see."
"Yep- and, due to my brilliance," Sirius paused for effect, leaving Remus staring at him warily, "we also have a solution."
888
Remus perched on the edge of his bed, watching his friends nervously. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to tear out of the Great Hall, through the double doors and across the lawn that morning. He remembered all of the lectures and plans from his parents, all of his carefully fashioned lies and excuses and thought bitterly that he could likely write an entirely fictional, if incredibly dull, novel of his life with the number of falsehoods he had painstakingly created.
For all the good it was doing now. He had been stupid to think that a normal life, with classes, sleeping in a dormitory and best friends, would allow him to pass unnoticed. And now it would be back on the train. That had been the agreement- his absolute silence, secrecy and safety for a normal magical education like every other wizard boy received.
All day, he had avoided being alone with any of them- sitting resolutely at the Gryffindor table all through lunch, deliberately ignoring James' none-too-subtle hints about needing to go to the library. Sirius' remarks about the perfect weather and the shame it was to be stuck in Charms on an afternoon with a peerless blue sky had been met with hunched shoulders and a determination to get to class as soon as possible.
But now the day was over, and he could no longer avoid them. He kept his eyes on Hermione. She was neither nervously jittery like James nor bluff and full of puffed-up bravado like Sirius. Nor did she tremble like Peter. He swallowed. Peter had not looked him in the eyes all day, and Remus knew he was deathly afraid that they wolf would come leaping out of the boy's skin and bite him. Not that he doesn't have a right to, he reflected, a sharp pain catching in his throat. This is why I wasn't supposed to come here, why I don't belong. Why I will never belong.
But Hermione radiated a quiet acceptance, her resolve the eye of the storm. There was no pity, fear or pain in her gaze. Instead, he could see a sense of mirth- not directed at him, but the other three, and her amusement at their reaction calmed him, kept the slow-burning panic under control.
And it allowed him to ask questions without fear that his voice would squeak with emotion.
"How do you know?" James and Sirius had both brightened at the sound of his voice- for most of the day, he had closed his shoulders around his body as if he wished for wings to cloak himself and said nothing- but they shuffled awkwardly when they realized they were going to have to explain themselves.
"Well, we erm…er…we just-"
"Followed you," James finally spit out. Sirius glared at him. "What? We can't lie about it, Siri. We followed him."
"Why?"
"Because we've been worried about you," Sirius jumped in quickly, as if the faster these words came out, the more quickly they eradicated those that had come before. "We wanted to make sure you were safe."
"I was safe," Remus said softly. "I'm the wolf. Do you have any idea what would have happened if I had somehow found you? As a wolf?"
"We didn't follow you to the shack," James clarified quickly.
"Then I don't understand. I was still a boy when I went under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. How do you know?"
Two heads turned in unison as they looked to Hermione. She gave him a rueful smile. "I helped them figure it out, Remus. They are your friends, and they knew then that visiting your mother was hardly what you were doing."
"We knew the phase of the moon, right? And we figured it out from there," James told him. Any pride he had in his deductive reasoning faded swiftly in the face of his friend's disappointment- and fear.
"I see." Silence descended in the room once more before a pained, "How long have you known?"
Hermione flinched. She had so hoped that this one awkward, obvious question was one that she would not be asked. And since the truth could not suffice… "I've known since I saw you transform the first time. I had a friend in America who was a werewolf," she spun quickly, "and the dark circles under your eyes, the pale, almost papery quality to your skin, your love of rare meat right after a full moon- she had the same symptoms."
"What solution?" he finally croaked. He turned back to Sirius. His dark friend had been bursting to tell him all day, and he had been evading the subject. It was time for whatever courage the Sorting Hat had seen in him to come to the fore.
888
Severus settled against his bed pillows propped on the wall, front teeth gently folding the end of his quill back and forth, tearing the feather stem bit by bit.
The melody he had heard in the wall waltzed through his mind at all times- during class, in the Great Hall, even through his sleep- not a dream, just a piping of notes, one after another after another, steady and smooth and constant. Klytemnestra had warned him to be careful, that the rising Dark Lord was hunting those like him, but he itched to find another player. He felt more than dutiful family affection for the older twin, he might even label her a friend, but while she had talent, Kly could not play as that flutist had. And was a wizard as powerful as Voldemort really going to be looking into a school?
"I…I play an instrument." He had not told his cousin of the conversation in the dungeon hallway with the Gryffindor witch, the age-old adage about knowledge and power staying his tongue. And now, more than ever, he found the wish to keep it private. She had entrusted him with a confidence of the highest degree. She did play an instrument. And she did it spectacularly well.
The thirteen-year-old boy frowned as he considered Lucius Malfoy, also actively seeking her attention. His jaw ached from the tension that accompanied the memory of that strange scene in the hallway. The Malfoy heir made his skin crawl. Everything about him epitomized the worst of Slytherin's considerably tarnished reputation. Why? What was the older boy's game? What could a Gryffindor four years his junior have for him? Given the way she addressed him- with contempt and just a little fear, Severus doubted she had been so forthcoming with him about her taboo musical abilities. But there were whispers in the common room that the Dark Lord had servants at Hogwarts…and the Malfoy heir seemed as like as any to be in that category. In which case, he should warn her…
He winced a little, remembering their last, and only, private conversation, his firm warning- his order- that he had delivered to her. But it did not diminish his determination. I need to talk to her.
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"Animagi?" Remus murmured. Sirius had finally found exactly what he had been looking for in the small hours of the morning before- and triumph had erased exhaustion as he pushed the book in front of his friend.
"The ability to transform into any animal at will," Sirius announced, somewhat unnecessarily as the bold letters of the book open in front of them declared exactly that.
"Is this how you do it?" Remus asked, eyes scanning the page.
"Erm…no. Not really," Sirius confessed. "That's just the principle of the thing, theory-"
"Says here all Animagi must be approved and registered with the Ministry," Remus read.
James and Sirius looked at each other. "They'll never approve."
"So don't tell," Hermione offered with a shrug.
"The teachers won't know?" James asked. "They won't be able to tell? Professor McGonagall is an Animagus- what if she, I dunno, smells it on us or something?"
Hermione recalled Dumbledore's statement about how impressive it was that the three of them managed to be Animagi without his knowing it. She smiled. Four of us. But he couldn't say that then. "I think we'll be all right," she said. "As long as we're very, very careful."
"But how do we do it?" Sirius had returned to the book, frowning. "Theory isn't much use for practical things."
"The books on becoming an Animagus will either be in the Restricted Section or not here at all. We may have to wait for a Christmas trip to Diagon Alley if we can't find them in the stacks."
"Even if they are in the Restricted Section, how do we-"
"Hermione can do it," Sirius cut James off airily. "You know," he pitched his voice much higher than Hermione's natural tone. "'Professor McGonagall, I had a question that only this one book can answer…'"
888
Hermione slotted her eyes at the inspector seated at the back of the room. He was perched ram-rod straight on a wooden stool at the back, and his eyes tracked Flitwick with a polite expression that implied it took all of the watcher's attention to keep himself where he was as the little teacher bobbed over the room, correcting wand swishes and pronunciation, acting in general as if the inspector swathed in red were not present.
Hermione twitched her wand and muttered the words, easily charming her buttons into neat rows while keeping her gaze on the stranger. They never wrote anything down. All they did was watch- often with far-away expressions that indicated that their minds were not at all on the present, nor did they have any interest in recalling them. They mostly seemed to float through the castle unaware of the majority of its inhabitants and their lives. It was an eerie quality. One or two had looked directly at her in the week they had been present, and given her hard looks as if probing her, frowned in her general direction and then let their gazes mist over once more as they drifted off again.
Whatever their story, the likelihood of them being inspectors was dwindling. The last seven days had given her ample time to decide that they didn't look, act or watch like inspectors. They were clearly there for a completely different reason. She cursed her impatience to know, and regretted even more that there was no way for her to gain the information. Her only sources were Slytherins, and they were so far removed from her they might as well have been on the far side of the moon.
She cocked her head a little, staring at the blackboard with unseeing eyes as Flitwick returned to it to lecture. Not inspectors. But not men Dumbledore wanted publicly exposed either. Men with closed, often hard, faces, for all the distance in their eyes and apparent inattention to their surroundings.
Slytherins knew about them. But experience had long since taught her that not all Slytherins endorsed the prejudices of their fellows. And their features detailed worry, pressure, and a great deal of hardship. Hermione sat up straighter in her chair.
Perhaps they were men of the Order of the Phoenix.
But if that was true, how did someone with the last name Zabini know them?
888
"First Hogsmeade trip ever," Lily slung her red-and-gold striped Gryffindor scarf around her neck, her excitement glittering in her green eyes. Hermione laughed at her genuine eagerness. Lily, wrapped in the books and cleverness that Hermione had once used to describe herself, too seldom allowed herself to be merely a thirteen-year-old girl.
"You're not excited?" Trina's voice sliced across the girls' camaraderie. "I guess in America you must be allowed to do wherever you want." Unpleasant snickers followed this pronouncement, and stopped as Hermione turned, very slowly, to face the younger girls.
The last two months had been unsettling for the girls she shared her dormitory with. For though one or two were her equal in physical development- a combination of their own early maturity and her late-blossoming body- none had the four extra years of experience that Hermione had secreted within her new identity, and only Lily would face the dangers the seventeen-year-old had conquered. When angered, the cold control of the fighter set into Hermione's jaw and her eyes turned to flinty shards, body tensing automatically to become a wound spring waiting for the trigger to unload her wrath.
It had never been pulled. Hermione gave Trina a long look, flickered her gaze over the rest of the girls, picked up her scarf and strode out without speaking.
"Bitch," Trina muttered as the door closed.
"If you aren't brave enough to say that to her face, don't say it," Lily challenged quietly.
"What's the matter with you, Lily?" Patricia snorted. "You used to be fun."
"I used to have no one to talk to," Lily corrected. And with a gait that unconsciously mimicked her new friend's, she, too, stalked from the room.
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"Where's best?" The expression on the boys' faces reminded Hermione so much of Ron's first time in Hogsmeade that her memory twinged- not with so much pain as it would have two months prior, but with a fondness akin to that of a sibling's. Their wide eyes mirrored his blue gaping ones, eager to go everywhere, almost like a three-headed dog in his rush to see everything. The metaphor was, if anything, more apt here. Except the dog had four heads.
"Zonko's Joke Shop," was Sirius' first bid, to no one's surprise.
"Honeydukes," Remus challenged.
"There's time for both. We don't know yet."
"Never saw one without the other. The number of times I had them in here, oh they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!" "Three Broomsticks. They serve butter beer." Hermione nodded at the warm tavern. James and Sirius glanced at each other, at the pub, and shrugged.
"Zonko's first," James agreed. "Much less crowded right now."
"Fine. But I'm meeting Lily in an hour," Hermione told them, checking her watch and clutching at her cloak. On Halloween no snow had fallen yet, but the bite in the air and the dense clouds above promised it.
"Evans?" James stumbled in a pot-hole that seemed to have suddenly opened under his foot. "Why?"
Sirius shook his head and rolled his eyes at Hermione, who smiled in spite of herself.
"You know, we're friends," she explained with exaggerated care.
"I know that."
"What she's really saying is that we're not good enough for her," Sirius returned.
They passed two of the inspectors in their long robes- always the same blood red. Hermione and James both stopped as they passed, eyes following them down the street.
"What are they doing?" James muttered. Hermione had looked up in class one day to find him watching the inspectors almost as closely as she was, and he was not thinking of answers that he liked to his own questions.
"I don't know."
"They haven't written a single thing down. In any class. Some inspectors. Hey!" James' dark eyes were bright as he turned to her. "Do you reckon they're the people that fought the Death Eaters in Diagon Alley?"
"Maybe," Hermione allowed, and her mind started assembling the facts of the article with all she knew of the future. It would dovetail nicely if the attack in Diagon Alley had been met not by the Ministry, but the fledgling Order of the Phoenix…
"Hellooo. Zonko's? I have a Nose-Biting Teacup in there with my name on it," Sirius hinted broadly. He had evinced no interest in the inspectors- he was far more concerned with becoming Animagi. The inspectors, whether real or under pretense, had no practical impact on him or his friends.
And in spite of combing the Restricted Section every time they were in there- several times a day under the watchful eyes and tight mouth of Madam Pince (Had she ever been young? Hermione would swear that the stiff librarian looked exactly the same in twenty years), no title had suggested itself, and they needed a title to get permission. There was no Gilderoy Lockhart in this time - no teacher would be daft enough to them write an open-ended note.
Warm air enfolded her, accompanied by the chime that told the owner of their arrival. The inspectors were forgotten in James' haste to beat Sirius to some of the more mischievous items crowding Zonko's shelves.
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"The other girls of our dorm didn't seek your illustrious company?" Hermione teased as Lily walked down the lane alone toward her. The other girl snorted.
"I didn't want the burden of theirs." As she fell in step beside her, Hermione was well aware of the other's eyes- disconcertingly green like Harry's- and the admiration they held. "You're different," Lily announced as they turned the corner towards the café. "Ever since you came, Hermione, they seem very…very vapid." The older girl smiled, painfully aware of the respect that bordered on awe in Lily's gaze. She had not counted on many things in this journey, but the friendship of her best friend's mother was perhaps the most unexpected. And maybe, she thought bleakly, the most painful.
Sudden and real, as if for the first time, Hermione understood coldly, gut icing in her with fear, that Lily Evans had less than a decade left to her life. Her maturation would end not with a lined face and white hair, but with death at the hands of the man destroying Hermione's world- in both times.
"Hermione?" It was clear the girl was expecting an answer to her statement, a reassurance. Hermione scrambled to remember what she said through the stark lines of reality that she felt closing around her- knowing everything, far more than she wanted to, powerless to act. Perhaps if Voldemort had not fallen when he did, the wizarding world would have crumbled to him those many years ago-
And maybe not. I can change it. I can kill Peter. And Harry will keep his parents…
Her mouth moved, and she forced her mind to follow it. "They are. But they'll grow out of it."
Lily pulled a face. "Are you sure?"
Hermione pushed a laugh past her lips, shoving away the morbidity of her thoughts at the same time. She thought too much of death and loss, unable to escape the foreknowledge that fluttered over her mind constantly.
She was here, now, and Lily was alive. That was all that could be accounted for. A more genuine smile touched her mouth. Parvati and Lavender were hardly inspiring examples, but both had joined the DA, and there was both courage and womanliness that glittered in their eyes when they had not taken too much care to cover it over with sequins. "I promise."
888
Walking back to meet Sirius, James and Remus to return to Hogwarts- Peter had almost stopped registering to her now- better to ignore him than allow her hatred to drive her into irrationality, she was poor enough at blending in as it was- she saw the flash of gilt capping rich black that meant Malfoy, and the grey eyes that lifted to hers ruined her chance to merely sidle past and pretend not to see him.
Better to greet him, or to ignore him? Her hesitant footsteps made up her mind for her. She had little choice but to address him as she slowed. He spared her the need.
"Miss Granger!" The same, contemptuous voice. Father and son's faces angled on different planes, their eyes shades apart. In looks, Lucius did not quite mirror his son. But the voice, that his son had- would- inherit, to the life.
He made a courtly bow to her, and she sighed, making the conscious effort not to roll her eyes. Walden Macnair, his ever-present shadow, skulked just behind him, and she was certain she could not fight two future- or present- Death Eaters if her rudeness earned their ire. And she was not within the safe walls of the school.
"Mr. Malfoy."
"You've earned courtesies," Walden sniggered behind him. Lucius jammed his elbow backwards into Walden's ribs, the many layers of cloth between then ensuring no real damage was done, but causing the laugh to turn to a cough all the same.
"Might I dare hope for the pleasure of your company on the walk back to the castle? It is getting late." Malfoy presented his arm, teeth reflecting red-orange in the dying light of the sun. The hard cast of light over the face glinted like fire imbedded in the ice of his gaze, making it feral, not warm, and Hermione backed away instinctively, her eyes widening.
Then he frowned in concern, the look of the demon vanished, replaced by the boy. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she replied firmly, locking her arms at her sides as he reached for her. "I am fine, thank you." She forced the smile and the words.
"All the same I think it would be better for us to escort you." Without knowing him, Hermione might have believed him sincere. He was certainly gentle enough as he lifted one tight arm from her side. She was aware of Macnair too close to her, behind her, his fingers just barely touching her back, but making it entirely clear.
She could not escape from between them.
"I'm afraid I've arranged to meet James and Sirius," she managed, trying to focus both on the boy at her back and lie to the one facing her.
"You can meet them at the castle- you did not look well-"
"Find another girl to play your whore, Lucius. I think she's quite clear on not going anywhere with you. Not that I blame her."
Hermione's head lifted in relief to meet the gaze of her defendant. Severus Snape stood in the road leading from Hogsmeade to the castle, chin up in defiance of the older, taller, boys, pushing his wand idly back and forth in his hands.
A strange look, one of distinct, superior amusement colored Malfoy's features. If expressions had a sound, this one would have been a snort of contemptuous laughter. But the look faded and irritation took its place on the aristocrat's face. "What is it to you?" Lucius snapped. "Just because no woman would look twice at you hardly means that I should not be allowed to court whom I choose."
"You choose. I do not." Snape had distracted them enough, and so saying, Hermione wrenched her arm from the older boy's hand and darted around them, backing towards Snape, her own hand clenched in her pocket around her wand.
For a moment, bestial anger twisted Malfoy's face, the proud, beautiful lines mangling with sunset shades to shadow him- and then it passed, smoothing so fluidly it might never have been.
There was no stiffness or awkwardness in the polite nod he gave her, ignoring Snape. "I was merely concerned for your welfare, miss. Far be it from me to force any girl unwilling."
"Then stay away from me. Always." Hermione's eyes lent strength to her voice, and it came out cold and ringing.
To this, Malfoy made no reply. He turned on his heel and vanished back into the village, Macnair on his heels. Hermione turned to her unexpected rescuer.
"Thank you?" she murmured hesitantly. After weeks of passing her by- she remembered him watching her at the dinner table and blushing and turning away. Perhaps he was not so unlikely to help her. The only question would be why. Wariness flared. She had been burned too often by trusting too quickly.
"Question or fact, Granger?"
"That depends on you," she replied, heating. But to her surprise, she saw a faint glimmer of amusement there- swiftly replaced by apprehension.
"What does he want with you?" Snape asked quietly, dark eyes now permeated with dislike at he watched the older boys' retreating backs.
"Damned if I know," came her bitter reply. "He won't leave me alone."
"Then it follows that he knows something about you- or wants something you can give him." His dismissed the red that rushed to her cheeks with a casual flip of his pale hand. "Other than your virginity, I mean."
She opened her mouth to make her reply, and stopped. He was watching her too closely, his eyes trained on the nuances of her face too tightly for simple torment.
"What do you want?" The same edge she had used with Malfoy cut her tone.
He smiled, fleetingly, acknowledging her victory. But instead of replying, he shrugged eloquently and set his path back along the wide road to the castle.
"Where are your cousins, since you keep their constant company?" She held her ground, refusing the play the lead-and-follow game. He winced, whirled, his young face inscrutable.
"Why?"
"I seldom see you about without them."
"They are…otherwise engaged."
"I see." His refusal to discuss his family was neither unexpected nor off-putting. If she wanted to know what they knew about the inspectors, it was going to have to be a great deal more roundabout than the blunt questions Gryffindors were so famous for. She had asked it mostly as courtesy, the requisite small talk before she moved towards her real topic for conversation. "Last time I spoke to you, it was, 'Don't come near me again.' Yet I find you come to my aid on a Hogsmeade road. Why?" she pressed him.
At first he did not answer, and his leg swung as if he were simply going to walk away. But as the silence continued in the cold, he eventually looked at her, silhouetted by the indistinct shapes of the dark trees that heralded the boundary of the Forbidden Forest. He cocked his head as if measuring her, and Hermione found herself despairing that she would be found wanting and he would not tell her why, that she should not know-
"I have heard you play," he said softly.
She stared at him. "You can't have," she said slowly.
He snorted, impatience instantly enkindled. "You were the one who came to me to tell me of your instrument. Isn't it a little late to deny it?"
"No, you don't-"
"Playing inside the school's passages do not prevent others from hearing the sound," he continued, his explanation barely civil. But his expression then put his tone to lie as he smiled. It was a sweet smile, purely untouched by the bitter malice or mockery that so often shaped his face- both present and future.
"But you do play well. I heard your flute in the ninth corridor-"
"Flute?" she interrupted. He frowned.
"Yes, flute."
Hermione stared at him. "You did not hear me," she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears as her mind leapt ahead, trying to guess. "I play the harp, and sing. I do not play flute."
His mouth opened, snapped shut. The shock, and disappointment, in his eyes was almost palpable. She understood. His recent friendliness, his stares, they were a result of her perceived genius, this flute player whom he had mistaken for her. "Then who was it?" he finally whispered, voice roughened by disillusionment. She swallowed her own disappointment to reply.
"I have no idea."