"Well, I am sure that Hermione mentions me when the two of you are in the library?" Sirius asked his studious werewolf friend. He was trying to be casual and get a bit of information about Hermione out of Remus, but so far wasn't having any success.
Remus chuckled at him. "Not really, Sirius. We mostly just study. It's nice to have someone else who is as academically minded as me to partner with," he answered. "The only problem is that Mary and Marlene come around sometimes. It can get very...distracting."
Sirius grinned, noticing the blush that had worked its way onto Remus's face. As far as Sirius knew, Remus hadn't dated anyone, though he had been known to hook up with muggle girls during the summer breaks - only to break their hearts when he never called. He had long thought that his friend was simply avoiding attachment and relationships. He was sure that Remus didn't want to reveal his furry little problem to anyone else, for fear of rejection. But, that didn't mean that Hogwarts girls didn't like Remus or that he didn't like them back.
"So, which one is it then, Moony?" Sirius asked, with a grin.
Remus sputtered. "I don't know what you are talking about," he insisted, trying to keep his face blank. But, Sirius had known him for seven years and he could read his face like an open book.
"Do you fancy Mary or Marlene?" he asked, more directly this time.
Remus desperately wished James was there because he'd be able to get out of this conversation simply by bringing up Lily. But, with just Sirius, he would have to concede defeat. "Godric, is it that obvious?" he asked. He shoved his face into his hands and whispered the name, both longing and dreading Sirius hearing it.
"Only because I am your best mate," Sirius teased. "I am sure whoever it is is unfortunately clueless. Now, tell me again, because I couldn't hear you with your big mitts over your mouth."
"Marlene," Remus finally repeated, his Adam's apple bobbing with the weight of his confession. "But it doesn't matter. She's too bloody gorgeous to be seen with someone like me."
"McKinnon," Sirius said, with an appreciative smile on his face. "You remember I dated her briefly in Fourth year. She's a pretty excellent snogger." He shook the memories from his mind. "Well, Moony, I can't have you putting yourself down like that. Marlene is beautiful, yes, but she obviously likes you if she keeps coming around using Hermione as an excuse to talk to you. Besides, I think the pair of you would make a great couple. In fact, I think you should ask her to Hogsmeade next weekend. We could double date - I'll bring Hermione."
Remus, desperate to get the conversation off of him, tried to bring Sirius down a peg. "What makes you so sure Hermione would want to go with you?" he asked.
"I am telling you, Moony, that witch has got it bad for me. She shivers when I touch her. She always sits next to me. And, sometimes, when she stares at me she bites her lower lip," he said, counting them off with his finger. "I swear, its one of the more attractive things I've seen a witch do and I don't even think she does it intentionally."
Remus smiled at him. He had his doubts about Hermione's attraction. Sirius was used to witches falling at his feet, but Hermione seemed immune to his charms. He even seemed to annoy her a little bit. But, he didn't want to burst Sirius's bubble. "Alright, Casanova. Let's go to dinner," he said, patting Sirius on the back.
They walked down the stairs to the Common Room and found James, Peter and Hermione waiting for them. "Thank Merlin! I was just about to send a rescue party," James said, dramatically. "I'm starving. Let's go!"
"Um, Sirius?" Hermione asked, a bit meekly. "Could I speak with you before dinner?" She looked at the other boys, expectantly. "In private," she added.
Sirius shot a cocky grin to Remus, before wrapping his arm around Hermione's shoulders and leading her to the little alcove by the window. "Of course, kitten. Take as long as you'd like," he said, magnanimously.
Hermione had thought long and hard about how to convince Lily that she didn't like James and that James didn't like her back either. Rather, she needed Lily to know that the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain and Head Boy only had eyes for her. Eventually, she thought up a somewhat harebrained plan, but it would do in the short amount of time that she had. Plus, if anyone would be on board, she figured it would be Sirius.
He took a step closer to her and pushed some of her hair out of her face and tucked the rogue lock behind her ear. Hermione was surprised by how close he was standing to her and felt her heart speed up for some unnamed reason. It was one thing to hear about all his flirtatious behavior and it was another thing to be on the receiving end of it.
"Now, what did you want to talk about, kitten?" he asked, giving her a crooked sort of smile.
She took a step back and then another when he followed her. Soon, her back was pressed flush against the stone wall and there was barely any space between them. Hermione brought her hands up to push against his chest, to put a little more space between them, so she could breathe without being overwhelmed by his delicious scent. Merlin, his chest was...well, he was certainly every bit as muscular as he looked. The Sirius she knew was still a bit skinny from Azkaban, but had been steadily putting more weight on since moving back into Grimmauld Place.
"Uh, Sirius, I wanted to talk to you about James and Lily," she said, pointedly.
Immediately, Sirius stopped his advances, looking a little bit deflated that he had misread her intention. He thought that she was finally coming on to him and that he'd at least get a cheeky snog out of it.
When he remained silent, Hermione decided to continue. "I feel really bad because since you and James helped me in Diagon Alley, Lily seems to think that I have feelings for James and that he reciprocates. You certainly didn't help by announcing that he'd seen me in just my knickers!" she scolded.
Sirius stiffened at being reminded of his big mouth.
"Well, I just...I can tell how much James likes Lily and I know Lily is at least attracted to him," she said, looking at her feet. "And well, I don't want to be what stands in their way."
"Uh huh," Sirius said, sounding confused. "What does this have to do with me?"
"I was thinking...if Lily were to see me engaged...err, snogging someone who wasn't James, she might realize that I didn't have feelings for him," she explained.
That perked up Sirius's ears.
"And then, I thought, if the person I was snogging was one of James's very close friends and James didn't have a problem with it, then she would also realize that James didn't have feelings for me either," she continued, practically blushing to the roots of her hair. She couldn't believe she was going to ask Sirius Black for a snog!
"Further, if it were to happen after curfew and James gave us detention, Lily would see how responsible he was being," she said, fully laying out her plan.
Sirius sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. This was not really how he thought the conversation was going to go. "Err..." he trailed off. Circe, couldn't he think of something a little more suave to say than 'err'? He was Sirius fucking Black for Godric's sake!
Hermione felt her heart drop. Of course Sirius would want to be caught snogging her. He was so cool and she was so...not. She couldn't believe she'd thought he was the best person to aske! "It's fine! I can just ask Remus," she said, backtracking. "I just thought, you know, you are kind of a love 'em and leave 'em type of wizard, so people wouldn't think it was weird if we didn't date afterwards."
"No! Don't!" Sirius said, giving away his emotions a little too quickly. He needed to play this cool. "Remus has it bad for McKinnon and somehow I don't think she'd go for him if he started snogging her roommate one week after she appeared out of nowhere."
Hermione smirked. "Really?" she asked. "Marlene can't stop talking about how strong his arms look."
"Yeah," Sirius answered with a smirk of his own. "Remus will be utterly delighted to hear that. Well, Hermione, I'd be delighted to be your secret snogging partner. Shall we meet in the seventh floor corridor at eleven o'clock tomorrow? I think Evans and James will be doing their rounds then."
"Sounds great," Hermione agreed with a smile. "So, shall we head to dinner?"
Sirius nodded and offered her his arm, leading the way down the tower.
After an uneventful dinner, Hermione went to Professor Dumbledore's office to discuss the fruits of her research. For three weeks, she'd toiled endlessly over arithmetic calculations and the Headmaster's own notes.
"Good evening, sir," she greeted him. "I have some findings that I wanted to share with you."
Dumbledore seemed pleased and indicated that she should take the seat across from him. He offered her tea, which she gratefully accepted.
"Well, since we already knew the form the vessel of the time turner takes and the mechanism for turning the grains of sand, I decided to focus my efforts on calculating the essence of time," she explained, passing over her notes.
Dumbledore shuffled through the equations that Hermione had nearly drawn. "Continue," he said, staring at her over his half-moon glasses.
"I was able to approximate it - quite well, I think - using the muggle concept of power. And, by my calculations, it will take 1.21 gigawatts of power to imbue the sand with the essence of time. Can you imagine - 1.21 gigawatts transferred in an instant?" she asked, somewhat giddy thinking about how all of her hard work was finally paying off.
Dumbledore dropped her notes to his lap and hung his head in his hands. "But...but, 1.21 gigawatts? That's preposterous! We could never hope to generate that much power in an instant," he said, sounding hopeless.
Hermione began to feel like her case was futile. She hadn't given up the hope that Professor Dumbledore would be able to create the time turner. After all, he had created it once before, hadn't he?
"The only thing that would naturally produce that amount of power is lightning," he said. "And even then, we have no way of controlling lightning more than a few feet to where it was intended to strike! And that is suggesting that we even know when and where lightning is going to strike."
Hermione's heart nearly stopped when she heard that. When and where lightning was going to strike? "But what if we did know precisely when and where lightning was going to strike?" she asked, her voice shaky with giddiness.
Dumbledore looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "The arithmetic equations would take years to calculate and even then, the time for which you were calculating would likely have passed," he said, trying to shut the idea down.
"A single bolt of lightning will strike the Astronomy Tower a little after midnight on the evening of the Halloween dance. It will cause a small fire and the Professors will be looking for Lily Evans and James Potter to help put out the fire, but they will be snogging in a broom closet," she said, with a smirk. Oh, she could kiss Sirius!
She felt her cheeks heating up at the unbidden thought. She supposed she would be doing just that the following night.
Dumbledore looked at her dumbfounded. "Well, yes...yes, that's quite brilliant Miss Granger. I suppose your knowledge of the future is more useful than I've allowed myself to consider," he said with a glint in his blue eyes. "Well, out you go then! I must get myself repairing the time turner and collecting some of this sand," he ordered, eager to get started on discovering time travel.
Hermione smiled, skipping down the spiral staircase. When she made it back to her bedroom, she felt more optimistic than she had since she'd gotten here, because at least she had an actual plan. She clicked open her golden locket and looked at the picture hidden inside. Harry's right leg was completely invisible.
"Don't worry, Harry," Hermione whispered to herself. "I will get your parents sorted before I leave...I just need a bit more help."
Meanwhile, Remus was interrogating Sirius about his private conversation with Hermione.
"Are you going to tell me what Hermione wanted?" he asked with a smirk. The werewolf had noticed Sirius's slightly disappointed posture at dinner so he knew that Hermione hadn't made all of Sirius's dreams come true. Even if he wasn't so adept at reading his friend's body language, he could tell from his lupine sense of smell. "I know if you'd kissed her, you would have been bragging the second we got back here."
James, Remus and Sirius had returned to the dorms after dinner, while Peter had detention with Filch. "What do you mean? Kissing Hermione?" James asked Sirius with an inquisitive look, surprised this was the first he was hearing about it. "I thought you said she was nothing special?"
Sirius groaned. Oh, he should have known that he couldn't trust Remus to keep his big mouth shut! Plus, he didn't want to admit that his technique was looking a little bit rusty. Usually he didn't have any trouble getting the witch he wanted.
"I might have changed my mind," he said, sheepishly. "It might have been harder than I care to admit to forget the sight of her in that white lace." He cleared his throat.
"Well, color me surprised," James said with a smirk.
"So, what did she want to talk about all alone?" Remus prodded. If he couldn't get the girl he wanted, he would settled for living vicariously through his two friends.
"She actually wanted to talk about James and Evans," he revealed. "She feels really bad about Evans thinking that there is something going on between the two of you. She wants to make it abundantly clear to Evans that there is absolutely nothing going on between the two of you."
"But then, why doesn't she just talk to Lily? What does she need your help for?" James asked, surprised that Hermione would want to help him out with his love life. Although, she was related to Dumbledore who had a tendency to meddle in people's lives, typically for the good.
Sirius grinned. "Just make sure you are on the seventh floor at a quarter past eleven tomorrow night for your rounds with Evans," he said, enjoying keeping the secret for a bit longer. It would be better if James had no idea what he was going to walk in on. "And make sure that you do the responsible thing."
James, clueless to his friend's scheming, nodded dumbly before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
Remus smirked at Sirius, a bit quicker on the uptake. "She asked you to snog her in front of James and Lily?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Sirius said, throwing Remus an arrogant smile that only seemed to work for him. "And you better believe that I am going to snog the knickers off of her," he promised.