He had stayed by her side for hours after she had fallen asleep again, and it had taken the others ten minutes to convince him to go down to the Great Hall and eat something. James huffed irritably as he stabbed his chicken, impaling it with his fork with a malicious glint in his eye, imagining that the chicken was whoever had done that to Hermione.
James glared down the table, silently daring anyone to approach him. Lily and Marlene were comforting Alice, who had broken down sobbing when Hermione had begun murmuring in her sleep again and Remus and Sirius had promised him they'd watch over Hermione. Frank and Cassandra were taking it in turns scouring the library for information or trying to weasel more on her condition from Madame Pomfrey; so far, none of the others had returned.
"How are you holding up, James?" asked a familiar voice, so different now it was not screeching in his ears. Lily perched herself solemnly on the bench opposite him. He gave her a weak smile in return and stabbed his chicken viciously again, and Lily sighed and dug into her food; "Hermione's woken up three times, but Remus managed to convince her to go back to sleep for an hour or two. Alice calmed down a bit, but Marlene and I had quite the time. Andi nor Frank have reported back, so we're assuming they've either got nothing out of Madame Pomfrey or they're too engrossed in their work," they both snorted and a small smile twitched at his lips. "Was that a smile, Potter?" she teased, and he pouted back.
"So we're back to the last-name-basis now, are we?" joked James, and Lily rolled her eyes and turned her gaze to his plate. "How did you escape?"
She grinned at him, tapping the side of her nose. He frowned and she sighed, relenting. "Fine, James, you get her way again. Don't get used to it, though; your head's big enough as it is." Lily rested her chin on her hand, smiling slightly. "Remus… Remus walked in when Alice was hyperventilating and told me that he'd sent you down to eat something, because you hadn't moved in hours. So I slapped Alice 'round the face and then left him to deal with her fit afterwards."
James let out a loud guffaw, but remembered the traumatising day they had all experienced that afternoon. "It's funny, isn't it?" asked Lily after a moment, and he looked up at her questioningly. She gave a one-shouldered shrug and motioned to the door. "We've known Hermione for three days and yet I feel as if I've known her all of my life. She's like a sister to me, and when she screamed like that…" She shuddered, eyeing her plate and rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm herself. "It scared me so much. I mean, it was so sudden, and she sounded so pained that I wanted to scream right along with her."
"When she sobbed like that, I wanted to cry myself," he admitted quietly, and Lily felt tears pool in her eyes as she reached across the table to pat his hand, smiling sadly. It was a friendly gesture; the movement was neither patronising nor suggestive, but it comforted him to know that she cared and understood how he felt. "It's strange, that she's found herself in the middle of our tight-knit group with seemingly no trouble. It makes me wonder whether we were really that guarded at all, or whether she was meant to be there all along."
Lily smiled sadly. "But we will help her get better," she announced to him, and he grinned at her. "We're going to protect her from whoever did that to her. We'll be there for her." Lily seemed to look slightly reminiscent for a moment, and James knew that she was thinking about her elder sister, Petunia, who had turned her back on family because of magic itself. "We will."
"I know." He said, looking into her perfectly shaped emerald eyes. They were beautifully curved, little flecks of the softest browns dancing in them, dancing with joy and life. She would have no idea, but those eyes would haunt him for the rest of his days.
He had been certain he had fallen in love with those beautiful eyes for the past seven years. However, the arrival of Hermione Granger and his supposed feelings for her had added themselves to the equation and he really wasn't sure how he felt about much anymore. A part of him wanted to turn his back on Lily and turn to Hermione, but another wanted her just as much as he had done in the past. Lily, however, had hated him, turned him down, crushed his heart, and dampened his ego, and yet he chased after her still.
Over the past year, he had noticed the looks of longing Remus had been sending her whenever he thought he wasn't looking, and those looks had been returned unquestioned by Lily. James knew when he was putting something off that could lead his best friends to happiness, and he was. If he wanted Remus to be happy, then Remus was going to be happy, whether the werewolf liked it or not.
"James?" Lily waved a hand in front of his face, looking at him worriedly. "Oh, good, you've come back to earth and joined me," she stated this dryly, but he saw the twitch of her lips as she spoke. "I was just saying that I had better get back to 'Mione. Sirius walked off with some other girl halfway through his watch and I left poor Remus with a hysterical Alice."
James shot her an approving grin and she wiped her mouth with her napkin, shooting him a supportive smile before flitting out of the room. Somehow, there was an air around Lily Evans, and you could not hate her for a thing, no matter how many times she had broken his heart.
It was almost like a constant cycle, whirring repeatedly, the same old daily occurrences seemingly playing them like clockwork. With the ever-threatening rise of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, James Potter figured that tradition needed to be broken, the clock to be stopped and turned back, and for the same old daily occurrences to change.
And when James Potter wanted something, he always got what he wanted.
She was standing in the middle of a sunlit meadow, the tall green grass brushing against her skin. The land before her stretched out in what seemed to be and endless expanse of beautiful greenery; the sun was just setting on the horizon, sparkling over the lake and dotting the dozens of trees scattered around her with beautiful rays of light that seemed to make the autumn-tide leaves glitter more merrily, as if covered with dew.
Hermione's hair was no longer matted and troubled from those hours of endless screaming, but pulled back into a beautiful braid that hung to her waist. Her muggle clothes no longer clung to her skin, but a long, floating dress tickled her heels. She examined the dress with a critical eye; she had never been one for dressing up, or down for that matter, so this was almost like the Yule Ball again; "Where am I?"
"Hey there, little 'Mione," said a casually familiar voice, and she whirled around, coming face-to-face with someone she thought she would never see again. Fred Weasley grinned at her and she launched herself forward, tears brimming over her chocolate eyes and threatening to fall. "It's been a few years," he teased softly, though his arms wrapped themselves protectively around her body, as if shielding her from something else.
"Fred," she murmured in his ear, relaxing in his arms with a small sigh of relief. "Am I dead? Are you dead? Oh - what would the others think?"
But he grinned and held her tighter, and she cut herself off and hugged him more tightly than she thought possible. "You're not dead and neither am I," he said cheerfully, pulling back to examine her from head-to-toe. "Well, you don't look dead," he stated playfully, and she whacked him lightly, still revelling at the fact that she had met her brother again. "I was sent here to warn you of something."
George stepped out from the shade of the beech tree he had been lounging in, snorting. "Well, it was more like someone," he contradicted, and Hermione wasted no time in throwing her arms around him, as well. "Whoa there little tiger," he said, but he held her just as tightly anyway, smiling into her neatly braided hair. "Listen here, 'Mione," he said quietly, "he will come to know who you are and where you're from, and when he does he will be after you. You-Know-Who isn't going to stop until you're dead."
Hermione nodded. "Well, I figured as much. If I knew about the future, he would think I'd tell him how he could win. I really don't understand how his mind works, anyway, I mean, I would never -"
"We know," said both the twins, and Hermione relaxed again, pulling back to look at them curiously, tilting her head to the side and looking for the hole in the side of George's head, and the injuries that Fred would maintain over the course of the battle. To her surprise and the twins' delight, there was no visible trace of his ear leaving the rest of him, and Fred looked as if he was not a day over seventeen. "Look, we just wanted you to know that -" Fred cut himself off, whirling around to check the sun's course in the sky. "We don't have much time, so I'm going to make this short: Voldemort will come to know that you're from the future, and he will be after you. He will threaten those you love and he will stop at nothing until you're on his side. No matter what he does, 'Mione, don't give in to him. That'll ruin the future and we'll never see you."
She nodded fiercely, embracing them both tightly. "I won't give in," she echoed strongly, and George grinned as Fred murmured, "That's our girl," in her ear, and, with a 'pop', the twins vanished, leaving her to whirl around and face the starry sky, the sun no longer visible anywhere among the trees. Hermione looked around for a way out and walked curiously over to the beech tree they had both appeared from, wondering if she could possibly exit the way she had found entrance.
Soon enough, she found her vision clouded by darkness, fogging her vision and lulling her into a fitful sleep.
Hermione gave a little moan and pushed herself up on her elbows, bending her sore limbs and wincing whenever a bone popped into place after a long night's sleep in an uncomfortable position. Wide amber eyes met hers as she groaned and pried open her eyes, and Remus grabbed her in a hug as soon as she had done so. She murmured sleepily and hugged him fiercely back. "We were worried about you," admitted Remus quietly as he pulled back, smiling in relief. Hermione grinned and sat up.
"It'll take much more than that to take care of Hermione Granger," said Hermione defiantly, and Remus grinned and squeezed her upper arm, nodding agreeably. "I am sorry I made you worry, you know - I'm fine." She pushed on the back of the sofa cushion for leverage, forcing her body weight on two unsteady feet with an almost inaudible wince.
Remus put his hands firmly on her shoulders, supporting her as she stumbled towards the dormitory steps. "Can you walk?" he asked softly, uncertainly, and she gave a small grunt of pain as an answer. He took her upper arms and turned her around, letting her lean on him. She didn't protest, but used his frame as a means of pushing up the stairs. They made it half-way up until the staircase gave way underneath their feet, sending them both spiralling to the ground.
Hermione laughed harder than she had in what felt like years as she pushed herself up on her elbows, watching the door above them crash open and Alice came darting out, easily sliding down the slope with little grace as she threw herself at Hermione, giggling, her cheeks flooded with colour. Remus sat up and looked dully up the stairs at Marlene and Lily, who exchanged amused, somewhat worried glances before sliding down after Alice with considerably more grace than she had. "I didn't know you were awake," said Alice, her chin resting on Hermione's shoulder and her eyes huge and full of mirth.
"Well, I was coming up to see you. It seems Remus had forgotten that the stairs turn to a slide of a boy sets foot on them, and followed me," stated Hermione drily, and Remus shrugged somewhat sheepishly. "I'm fine, Alice, thanks for asking."
Alice frowned at her; because she was so short, it looked almost comical, but none of the others had the heart to point that out. "If you're fine, Hermione Granger, then why did you need help coming up the stairs? Hmm?" she leaned forward triumphantly, batting her eyelashes. Lily offered her hand to Remus and managed to haul him to his feet and Marlene was hugging Hermione from behind, her chin set on her shoulder and her blue eyes wide and questioning.
Hermione grinned. "He wasn't helping me," she ignored Remus' snort as he took Lily's offered hand and hauled himself to his feet. Alice looked at her disbelievingly, her eyebrows raised and her lips set in a small, almost pathetic pout. "I'm fine!" she protested as Marlene scoffed and moved back and the small blonde girl huffed and stepped back.
"Glad to see you're alright, 'Mione," said Lily, moving forward to loosely embrace the smaller girl. Hermione smiled and hugged her back, grinning at Remus over her shoulder. It was strange to be there, hugging Harry's parents, father figures, and family, but she savoured every moment of it, and quite a large part of her loved them all now. They had welcomed her without question and had made her feel at home and safe, which was admittedly more than what Harry and Ron had done, and she loved it much more than she let on.
If she admitted to herself, she would find that her home had changed somewhat significantly.
I know it's been quite a while since I've updated, and I do hope none of you have given up on my poor planning and the story altogether, but here it is now, and I hope it's considerably longer and of higher quality than the last one. Also, I'd like to just point out, as I squeal and jump around in the middle of Wilkinson's, 49 reviews! That's almost 50!
If you can't tell, as I'm writing this note, I'm screaming like a five year old at her birthday party. Thank you so much for reviewing and sticking with me through my poor updating and, most of all, reviewing! I love each and every one of you and I hope you all know that more and more chapters will come quicker if I'm happy.
I'm certainly happy right now.
Love,
Marlene