Lily took a deep, somewhat calming breath before she pushed on the door to the boys' dorm, her stomach heavy with trepidation. She sighed at the state of the dormitory, clothes littered on the floor and the trunks open and overflowing with prank products from their last shopping sprees. She picked her way through the clothes, after she had closed the door softly behind her, and reached the first bed – James'. Lily decided to ignore the rank smell of his feet and slipped past him, reaching over the next bed – Sirius smelled disgusting and she had to plug her nose – to reach Remus'. She completely ignored the fact that Peter was in the dormitory; he had never been sensitive to anyone's problems, and she didn't trust him at all. "Remus?" she murmured softly, her cheeks flushed and her fingers shaking slightly as she brushed his cheek.

He moaned and blinked sleepily at her as she looked down at him, awkwardly rubbing her upper arm and jumping from foot to foot. "Lils?" he groaned, and she offered him a smile as an apology for waking him up at quarter past eleven in the night. "It's late." He moved to turn over, but the light from the moon caught the tears shining on her cheeks and he looked back at her, his expression morphing from one of annoyance to one of worry. "Are you alright? Is it the other girls? Are they alright?"

"Yeah," Lily cleared her throat as he motioned for her to sit down beside him. "Yeah, they're fine. But Hermione…" she trailed off as Remus shot up in bed beside her and his neck snapped around to look at the door. "She doesn't talk anymore. It's like she doesn't want anything to do with us. I keep trying to talk to her but whenever I try she remembers some appointment or something that she'd forgotten and runs away like I tried to hex her."

Remus frowned. "That's not like Hermione at all," he said softly, his voice scratchy from his sleep. "Are you sure none of us have said something that she got offended by? She wouldn't turn her back on us just because we hesitated in Transfiguration to join her in the DA. It's just simply not like her."

Lily let out a small cry and curled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her legs securely around them and looking down at him with tearful emerald eyes. "I'm worried about her," she murmured brokenly, and Remus wrapped an arm around her shoulder to pull her to his side. She looked up at him curiously and he blushed, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. "I – Remus, I like you," she said bluntly. "I like you – you know, as more than a friend. It's OK if you don't like me like that; I just thought you deserved to know…" He cut her off with a stern look down at her and she blushed. "Was I rambling?" her voice was shrill and he chuckled lightly. "I rambled again, didn't I? Mum's been trying to get me off rambling ever since I knew how to talk and it still hasn't worked and what would she say?"

"Calm it down, Lily," Remus soothed, patting the pillow beside his head and beckoning her down beside him as though it was a stupid idea to sit up all night – which, it probably was quite stupid – and she hesitated only a second before lying beside him, making sure to leave a polite distance between them. "We'll figure out what to do with Hermione in the morning."

She nodded as he rolled over and faced away from her, a feeling of hurt spreading in her gut as he completely ignored her presence there. "Well – uh – night, then," she murmured as she rolled back over, her eyes tearing slightly as she closed them. Lily sighed and curled her legs up to her chest while her back smashed into Remus' tucking her chin on her hand and looking out of the window forlornly.

Remus sighed and rolled over to watch her. He stayed silent, hoping to give her the impression that he was still sleeping, and watched her sniffle quietly. Her right cheek was pressed into the pillow, but he could still see the tears rolling down her left one, both of them fixed on the moon in the sky. It was a week from the full moon, and he often did the same thing, dreading the night when the moon would change. He watched in mild worry as her legs curled up to her front and her hands shook as she pulled the blankets to her chin, looking like a frightened child as the moon reflected in her eyes. "Lily," he murmured, and her eyes slowly looked up into his, wide and questioning. "I'm sorry if I seem a little rude. I really didn't mean to make you cry."

"No – no," Lily stammered, her fingers shaking as she rolled over to look at him, her hands creeping up to touch his face softly. He closed his eyes as her fingertips grazed over his cheek and she pulled them away, her blush hidden in the dark. "I – I was remembering when my sister used to make me stay in bed with her when the storms came. She used to tell me that it was to protect me from the thunder, but she was as scared of the storm as much as I am," she admitted quietly; "she pushes me away now. But I can still hear her in her room when the storm comes."

"You're really afraid of storms?" he said softly, shuffling closer. She nodded, looking more defeated than he had ever seen anyone look. "We're all afraid of something or other – it's OK to say so. I'm afraid of the full moon," he replied, his voice trembling as she looked up at him with wide eyes. "We're all afraid of something. Storms used to scare me when I was young, too. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Lily scoffed quietly. "Yeah, it's alright for a little child to be afraid of storms, Rem. But a seventeen year old who's living in constant danger? That's not OK." Remus sighed and wrapped a timid arm around her waist, pulling her closer so that she could bury her head into the crook of his neck. "Thank you though," she murmured into his ear, and he shivered slightly. She didn't seem to notice.

A few minutes later, he could hear her soft snores into his neck and he shifted so that her head was on his shoulder while his back was against the mattress, her body on top of his and her face pressed into his neck. "Goodnight, Lily," he breathed, and then he was out like a light.

Hermione hated avoiding them. But if they didn't trust her, then there was no point in trying to be friends with them, was there? She couldn't make them trust her, even if she wanted to run back to them and cry like a frightened child. Hermione shoved her wand in her robe pocket and moved towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, trailing the trees with her fingertips.

A strange hissing sound bounced against her ears as she delved further away from the castle and her eyes widened in shock. Hermione strained to hear it again, wishing it would just be mercifully her imagination, that Nagini was not on the grounds and that she was safe in Hogwarts… but then she heard it again, closer than it had been before. But this time it was accompanied by a voice, a pair of voices that seemed so familiar, almost as if she'd heard them in a dream.

"The girl – Granger – he said to get her. Not the redhead," the first voice, slightly gruff and strained slightly, hissed, attempting to stay quiet and failing miserably as his companion scoffed. "If we bring the redhead to him, he'll torture us both, Dolohov – do you want that to happen to you? Let alone your family?"

"Fine, Malfoy – you put that girl over by that tree. He said to make sure someone knows that we have her, didn't he? No, not that tree, you dunce – that one, over there – no, the one in the corner. Don't tie her up, she'd think it strange that we let her go – I said don't!" the second voice was clear, low-pitched, and, for a moment, Hermione almost thought it was Kingsley Shacklebolt in the clearing just in front of her. "Quick! Granger's getting closer!"

Her eyes widened. They had Lily? They were looking for her? She drew her wand, but it was too late, for one of the men was behind her, her wrist pressed tightly between her shoulder blades and her mouth covered as his dirtied hand slapped over it. She made a muffled sound that resembled a cry of protest and her captor chuckled – Hermione shivered; it was a low, patronising sound and she hated it. "Let go!" she bit down hard on his thumb, straining against him, but he was much too strong and hustled her into the clearing with irritating ease.

Lily was slumped against the tree, her emerald eyes glazed over, as if frozen in a permanent day dream. Hermione immediately struggled against her captor as the other one jabbed his wand in her direction, waking the redhead so suddenly the back of her head smacked against the trunk of the tree. "Hermione!" her voice was shrill as the redhead made to stand up, but Hermione's captor aimed a wand at Hermione's head and then she froze, her back half-way up the tree and her knees bent with strain on trying to hold her body up in mid-air.

"Now, red," purred the first, strolling forward casually with his wand pointed at her head, as if he did this every day and threatening lives was normal. "Listen carefully or she will pay the price. We're taking this bitch," he motioned to a struggling Hermione, "to our master and none of your lot are going to follow us, clear?" Lily nodded frantically and Hermione struggled harder. "You're going to tell your Headmaster that we have her, but you're not to tell them where we're going. Send Potter, Lupin, and Black after us – we already have Pettigrew," he grinned maliciously. "We don't allow Mudbloods in our ranks."

Hermione bit down viciously on her captor's thumb and crashed to her knees beside Lily, shoving his arms from her body. "Don't tell them anything – don't let the boys come after me – I'll be fine – just be safe until I get back – trust me, Lily, trust me and don't let anyone but the Order come after me – tell Frank, Mary, Dorcas, Cassandra, or Marlene about it and they'll know…"

The arms roughly grabbed her around the waist and slung her back into a tree, ripping the redhead's hands from her own and sending stars dancing across her vision. The arms picked her up with ease and slung her over someone's shoulder, and then all she knew was blackness and Lily's shrieks of protest as her eyes slid shut tightly.

Remus slouched in his chair, the book spread across his lap and his gaze fixed on the sugar quill in his hand. He had been sitting there for three hours and yet the quill wouldn't melt between his lips, much to the others' amusement, and by now he was beginning to get a little irritated. Lily had gotten up a good hour ago to meet her new friend Snape by the black lake, much to his chagrin, and hadn't been back since, and now his worry was at a high that he hadn't estimated it could be at. He groaned and looked at Dorcas, who was slung across the couch beside him, dragging a brush through Cassandra's hair, who was reading a magazine with attention that could only come from years of practiced skill of ignoring the pain. Marlene and Mary were leaning backwards over the loveseat opposite, talking casually with both Sirius and James as though they did this every day. Frank and Alice had snuck out to Hogsmeade under the Invisibility Cloak three hours before and hadn't been heard from since and Peter was in the library, studying for his Charms NEWT.

"Remus!" Lily's frantic, tearful voice cut through the companionable murmur of the almost-empty common room as the Fat Lady's portrait swung open to admit a frazzled redhead, who lunged forward to grab his hands to tug him from the chair. "They have Hermione - the Death Eaters - they grabbed me - took me to the Forbidden Forest - told me to send you three after them - something about joining them - but they have Hermione - she told me to contact the Order, whatever that is -"

Mary's eyes widened and she shot up, grabbing Lily by the shoulders and whirling her around. "When was this? How do you know about the Order? What else did she say? Lily, this is important! Hermione's life depends on what you tell us! What happened in the Forbidden Forest?" She was hysterical now, and Marlene and Dorcas were at her shoulders, looking just as frantic, while Cassandra's magazine had slipped from between her fingers and she was frozen against the sofa. "What did she say about contacting the Order?"

"She - she said not to tell you anything - to send the Order after her, whatever the fuck that means - to stay put until she got back - she said that she'd get back on her own, but to contact the Order to let them know that she wouldn't be there for a while -" she shook her head, tears glistening on her cheeks. "But Mary... they took her! They said not to tell anyone but you or they'd kill her!"

"They - they have 'Mione..."

I can't believe I finally got this posted! Eek, I've been wanting to post this one for weeks, but I figured that it was too early for all the action. And, yes, Voldemort will be caught monologuing in the next chapter :) Hope you didn't mind the need to post more, but I've been feeling ill lately and I've been off school for a while so I've had plenty of time to post more chapters.

Love,

Marlene