Hermione had woken up the morning after, spread across a sofa in the Gryffindor Common Room, feeling sickly and ill. She gave a small moan and tried to sit up, but her stomach protested and sent her spiralling back onto the sofa with a small groan of pain. Lily, Alice, and Dorcas were chatting animatedly, each of them leaning over the coffee table with their heads bent together, but there was no sign of anybody else. Lily looked up when she heard her, and stood up and hurried to her side. "Are you alright?" she asked concernedly, but Hermione just shot her a look that plainly said, "Do I look like I'm alright?"

She made to sit up again, Lily holding her left shoulder to steady her, but her stomach erupted in pain and she cried out and collapsed back into the sofa cushions, clutching her torso and moaning. Cassandra appeared from behind the sofa worriedly and Hermione gave a small moan before clamping her eyes shut. "What's wrong with her?" asked Alice frantically, grasping her hand as she cried out.

"Cassie, go and get the boys," Lily instructed. "Andi, go and talk to Madame Pomfrey. We can't move her without risking something or other. Tell her we're looking after her, but I have no clue whatsoever what's wrong with her." Dorcas nodded and raced up the stairs, calling out for the boys with a worried expression plastered onto her features; Cassandra sent a concerned glance at Hermione, who had been whimpering while Lily had talked, before turning heel and hurrying through the portrait hole. "Hermione, what's wrong? Hermione?"

"I – don't – know!" Hermione managed to bite out before her eyes were pried open, looking up at Lily, full of pain and hopelessness. "I – really – don't – know…" She trailed off as the boys came thundering down the stairs, eyes wide and full of worry as James and Sirius both clattered to their knees beside her. Her eyes were screwed shut in pain, her teeth clamping down on her lower lip and her skin paler than it had been when they first saw her. "Shit," she groaned again, one of her legs bending slightly and her torso erupting in more pain. Hermione cried out again and Lily looked frantically at the boys, who all looked pale and worried, clueless as to what was wrong.

Dorcas came crashing down, Frank running after her. "Has she gotten worse? Is Cassandra back yet? How is she doing?" she gasped out, collapsing beside Hermione and grabbing her free hand as she gave another moan of pain, her leg almost whacking Remus in the side of the head. "Hermione, can you hear me?"

Hermione gave out a small scream as a response and curled in on herself, her hands tightening and her limbs clamping together. "It – it fucking hurts," she whimpered, prying her eyes open to look brokenly at James and Lily, who both looked at ends of what to do about it. Quite suddenly the portrait hole slammed open and Madame Pomfrey ran in, looking white in the face and Cassandra scurried in after her, looking shocked.

"She shows signs of enduring the after-effects of the Cruciatus Curse," said Madame Pomfrey after a moment, taking Lily's place beside Hermione. "Merlin knows why a child so young has been under the Cruciatus Curse…"

"She's nineteen," said Lily suddenly. "She skipped out on her original seventh year to
help in the war. She must've been tortured for information while she was there." Lily's eyes were full of tears. "Poor 'Mione, what did they do to you?"

Hermione responded with another scream, drawn-out and pained as she let out a small sob, tears of her own sliding relentlessly down her pale cheeks. Madame Pomfrey sat back on her heels, looking hopeless. "I can't do anything to help her until it wears out," she said quietly. "She's still able to hear you, and you might be able to help her through it. Come and fetch me if there is a change in her condition." She stood up, cast a sorrowful glance back at Hermione, who was sobbing inbetween screams, and left.

James swallowed and looked sadly down at her, taking her hand in his own. She looked so small, so frail, as she lay there, sobbing and screaming. He had never thought that he would ever see the day when he regretted every day of his life, watching the war happen around him and not doing a thing to stop beautiful people like her take their fate as if they were soldiers, taking the pain like they were used to it without a single complaint. He had never felt this way about someone he had only just met, but something had made him love her instantly, as if he would be the only one to brush away the tears dragging themselves down her cheeks.

Hermione let out the worst scream yet, ringing out in the empty, silent Common Room and causing Lily to let out a loud sob and turn away. "No – no, please! We didn't steal anything! We didn't steal anything!" she shrieked, sobbing louder than she had done. Hermione grappled for her left forearm, ripping her arm out of Alice's grip to clutch it tightly, curling in on herself with a louder scream than she had let out before. "Please, we didn't – we didn't steal anything! We didn't steal anything! We found it – we found it – we found it in the forest – please!" She gasped for breath and the screams stopped for a moment.

Lily felt arms wrap around her waist tightly as Hermione's neck jerked upwards, as if someone had taken a hold of her hair and yanked it into the air. Her emerald eyes, so full of tears, looked up into Remus' tearing amber ones and she turned into his chest, burying her face in his shirt and sobbing there. He tightened his grip around her and rested his chin on her shoulder, his head atop her hair, and she swore she felt droplets of water run down her neck.

"It's a fake – fake!" shrieked Hermione, clawing at James' arms, which were clinging to her wrists as tightly as possible without causing her more pain. She sprung up in his grip, latching onto his shoulders and sobbing into the crook of his neck. "It's a fake! Please, it's just a fake…"

It felt like forever to Marlene and she sat there on the coffee table, watching her friend writhe and scream and sob into her cousin's shoulder. She sobbed and sobbed the tears she had been holding back for the past hour finally leaking down her pale cheeks like it was their last chance. "Oh Merlin," she whimpered as Hermione's body went slack and fell limply into James' arms, her eyes still clamped shut and her body shuddering every few seconds. A presence beside her made her look up into the worried grey eyes of Sirius Black, who said nothing, but just stared at Hermione as her screams suddenly filled the room once more. "Who would do something like this?" she whispered and Sirius just wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

James watched her scream, her arms clutching his upper arms like they were the only thing keeping her alive. He listened to her shrieks of pain and her pleads of mercy. He felt her writhe against him, screaming. Normally he wouldn't have minded a girl doing this, even taking pleasure in it once upon a time, but now he was disgusted with himself, disgusted for ever wanting a girl to do this for him. "Hermione, you're going to be alright," he said without even registering the words. "I'm here. Lils is here. Cassie and Marls and Andi are here. Padfoot and Moony are here… we're all here for you, 'Mione. We'll always be here."

Hermione gave a whimper and shook in his arms, clutching onto him as if he was her lifeline. "Just a copy," she breathed, her screams suddenly subsiding and her sobs drying as if they were never there. Lily looked up from Remus' chest and gave a sigh of relief, collapsing by her side and pulling her in for a tight hug.

Her eyes fluttered open, slowly yet surely, and she moved her arms to hug Lily back. However, as she did this, she gave another small moan of pain and pulled them into her stomach. All of them were instantly surrounding her at once, each one looking more pained than they had ever remembered. "Shit," she swore as blood began to spread around her middle, but when Lily took a closer look there was no sign of a gash or anything that could have caused the blood.

James took her wrist and slowly pried it away from her stomach, his eyes fixed on the word plastered into her forearm, prominently seeping blood over his fingers. "Who did this?" he growled sharply, and she looked up at him, almost fearing him as he ripped off the lower part of his shirt and bound her arm in it, his eyes not leaving her wide ones. "Who, Hermione?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange," she murmured, and Sirius took a step back and collapsed back onto the coffee table, his eyes flashing with guilt. In an instant, Hermione was on her unsteady feet and was stumbling forward to throw her arms around his neck. "You're not that bitch, Sirius, blood relations don't really restrict who your family is or not." She sat beside him and he looked back at her, thunderstruck. "Look around, Sirius, these people are your family, not her. Besides, do you really think they'd let you take the blame for that insane cow's misadventures?"

Sirius shot her a thankful look, hugging her tentatively back. "Thanks, 'Mione," he said, a grin fighting its way onto his roguish face. "I didn't know you felt that way about me. But, hey, I don't reject girls who throw themselves at me."

Hermione punched him in the arm, but winced when she realised she had punched him with her bleeding arm, and teared up when the pain intensified tenfold. "Ah, someone fetch Madame Pomfrey?" she offered sheepishly, and Cassandra leapt to her feet and scurried out of the room, still sobbing thickly. "Sorry for – you know –breaking down on you like that…"

James sat on her other side. "Hey, it's OK. We all have breakdowns sometimes – it wasn't your fault, anyway."

"Thanks," she replied, and Lily threw herself forward a moment later, embracing the shivering girl as tightly as possible without causing her more pain. "Don't scare us like that again!" declared Marlene, sniffling as she stood up and joined in on the hug, squeezing them both as Dorcas launched herself forward to embrace them all, sobbing still.

Hermione gave a soft laugh as she was flattened to the table, her arms wrapped tightly around three girls she would never have dreamed of hugging before she had travelled through time. She tightened her hold on them, ignoring the flare of pain from her arm and sniffling slightly because of it, knowing she would never embrace the people she would've once preferred to embrace ever again.

James watched, relieved, as Madame Pomfrey and Cassandra crashed back through the portrait hole, both looking thoroughly windswept and white in the face. Hermione grinned at Cassandra, who squealed and hugged her loosely as Madame Pomfrey tugged the other girls off her. "You're fine, Miss Granger, but I think you should take the day off tomorrow," reported Madame Pomfrey after a minute and the others groaned. "You're all excused from classes for the next two days – make sure she eats a lot and drinks quite a bit more than usual. I trust you, as Head Girl and Boy, to take care of her as long as she needs it."

"Of course," responded James, nodding.

"Always," replied Lily solemnly, and, for some strange reason, Hermione laughed.

IMPORTANT

I'm sorry this is short, but I had to end it here. It seemed a place better than when I'd planned, and I don't regret it.

Also, if Lionswing is reading this currently, you may not have heard, but I consider you the most avid reader I have here. I have mentioned that the character Cassandra Godwineson is not necessarily based on her personality, for I don't know her personally, but she is in tribute to her wonderful reviews and inspirational suggestions. I will not always be creating new characters, because I have all of the people the story is centred on to cover, but if I meet a few, perhaps good, honest people, then there will occasionally be new characters that I have created in thanks to those people.

Love,

Marlene