A/N: So what do you guys think so far?

And I fortunately know a little magic.

It's a talent that I always have possessed.

. - Poor Unfortunate Souls, Disney's The Little Mermaid

The first day of class was just as exciting for Hermione as it always was.

DADA was her favorite class by far, simply because every Gryffindor in her year was in it, and seeing all the Marauders together in their prime was an awesome sight. She liked them. Sirius was a prat, and Peter was a fool, and Remus was a doormat, and James was, to use Lily's choice of words, an arrogant toe-rag. But beyond that, they were really good people. In fact, Hermione was seriously considering asking Dumbledore to use his Pensieve so she could forget that Peter betrayed Lily and James. Death Eater status notwithstanding, he was a rather likeable guy, and certainly a good friend. In fact, she felt a little bad because she was constantly giving him mixed signals. One minute she'd be joking and laughing with him like everyone else, and the next minute she'd be cold and sarcastic. The poor guy was probably confused out of his mind.

The first few weeks of school were passing splendidly. Even Lily and James had toned down their bickering, and Hermione was wondering if she or Mary would be closer to winning the bet. Just when everything startle to settle in, however, Hermione walked into her common room from the library one evening to find Lily and James screaming at each other at the top of their lungs.

Not the lighthearted, flirtatious teasing they had been doing recently, but honest-to-Merlin, battle-cry, screaming.

"Why won't you ever leave me alone?" Lily shrieked, and Hermione froze in the doorway, staring at the couple standing on opposing sides of the room.

"Why don't you ever calm the fuck down?" James yelled back, and it occurred to Hermione that she had never actually heard James raise his voice in anger.

"Get out of my life, Potter!" she screamed, and Hermione suddenly felt that this was about much more than the shredded Arithmancy text that lay destroyed on the coffee table. Especially since it looked like they were studying happily minutes ago.
"I'm stuck in your life, Evans, and you better get used to it! Why can't you just accept me for who I am?" James roared. Hermione really wanted to go to her room, but to do so would cross the war zone, and it appeared as if they hadn't noticed her yet.

"Because you're an arrogant prick with an ego larger than a giant's skull!" she cried back.

"Just admit it: you like this arrogant prick! Stop acting like a twelve year old and own up to it!"

"Just who's calling who immature?"

"Dammit, Lily! I've tried to grow up; why haven't you?"

"How dare you?"

"I - "

But Hermione never find out how, exactly, James had dared. She had backed out of the doorway, deciding to spend the night in Gryffindor tower, if necessary. Their argument was private, and she shouldn't eavesdrop.

"Helen?" asked a voice from behind her, and she jumped a foot in surprise. She whipped around and drew her wand quickly, hexes forming in her throat before realizing that she had her wand pointed in the face of Remus Lupin.

He looked shocked, and immediately threw his hands up in surrender. She breathed a sigh of relief, then promptly colored and lowered her wand, apologizing profusely.

"I'm so sorry, Remus," she exclaimed, but he assured her it was fine.

"I was just wondering if Lily was in? We were supposed to study Runes tonight," he explained, and Hermione grimaced.

"She and James are…um, a little busy at the moment."

"Oh, god," he said, making a face. "You didn't walk in on them sucking teeth, did you?"

Hermione burst out laughing, primarily because of old Professor Lupin saying "sucking teeth," but she passed it off as the irony of the situation.

"Opposite, actually. They just might kill each other this time," she said happily.

"Would that they would do the world the favor," he said, and they shared a chuckle.

"Are you busy, then?" he asked. "I don't know about you, but my translation of that poem doesn't make any sense."

"That's because you're probably confusing purizaz and wunjo. They look practically identical in the font in this text. I did the same thing. Can we go to Gryffindor Tower? I just got kicked out of the library and they're busy in there," Hermione replied. Remus nodded, and as they studied that night, a new and special friendship was born.

The next morning, breakfast found Lily and James oddly quiet. But judging by how close they were sitting and the quick looks they kept stealing at each other, along with the fact that Lily was wearing a turtleneck in the middle of September, Hermione thought that last night had ended in "sucking teeth," after all. She caught Remus's eye, then briefly looked at the silent couple to indicate such. He grinned, but no one else seemed to notice except Mary, who notices everything. She made a mental note to fill Alice in later, and was sure Remus would do the same with Sirius, Peter, and Frank. In the mean time, it would be nice to give Lily and James some privacy, or at least not shout of the newest development in their relationship in front of the whole school, as she was sure would happen were Sirius to realize it right now.

But on their other side, Hermione noticed Alice and Frank staring at each other more dreamily than usual. She didn't have time to think on it any deeper, though, because Sirius started calling her name.

"Helen? Hello? Hel?"

"Sorry," she said. "What did you say?"

"I said Hogsmeade weekend this weekend. You game?"

"Already?"

"You can't go, Sirius," Remus told him, and Sirius looked shocked.

"Whaddya mean I can't go? Of course I can!"

"You have detention for turning Bode's hair blue last week," his friend reminded him, and Sirius frowned.

"Oh, yeah. Still can't believe he figured out that was me. Takes most new teachers at least a month…" he muttered.

Just then the mail flew in, and Hermione surprisingly found herself with two letters. One was from Petunia, of course, but the other one…

Dear Miss Grey,

I hope you're finding your seventh year of schooling at Hogwarts to your liking. As there is a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, I'd like to meet with you discuss your new job at Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, as well as the magical theories we mentioned over the summer.

I am free tonight at 7:00.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

"I can't go to Hogsmeade, anyway, Sirius," Hermione said, folding the letter up and putting it in her bag. "Dumbledore got me a job and I'll be working."

"Boring," Sirius replied, but Remus looked up interestedly.

"Where?" he asked.

"Scrivenshaft's," she said, and Remus grinned.

"That's next door to me!" he told her. "He got me a job, too, at Gladrag's."

While initially shocked, Hermione quickly deduced that Remus was not from the future, as well. She must not have noticed it in her time, but Dumbledore must work with the store-owners in Hogsmeade to get part-time jobs from lower-income students. Mary had said something of this sort in Diagon Alley. Remus would be a logical choice for this… work-study? As a werewolf, it would be extremely hard for him to get a job after graduation. If he's saved up all the money he's earned since he started working, it would be enough to get him by until he could find another job. And having students work there only on Hogsmeade weekends is helpful for the owners who only need the extra help when there's an influx of several hundred customers, and to the students who can't afford to shop, but still want to go to the village and be part of the merriment.

He's a very smart man, that Albus Dumbledore.

"We can walk there together, then!" Hermione said, finding an opportunity to keep up her charade. "I don't know the way there."

"Guess it'll just be me and James, then," Peter said. "Since Frank looks a little busy. Right James?"

But James looked a little busy too, and Peter was just about to open his mouth to ask a question when Remus dove in to distract him.

"Hey, Pete, did you ever finish that Charms essay?"

Peter made a face. "No. I don't what the hell Flitwick is talking about when he says he wants us to write three feet on how the different wand cores affect the type of charm subject that we should have been studying…"

Remus winked at Hermione, and she felt the urge to a giggle. He had distracted him alright, but now Peter was going to go on and on about how much he hated Charms for the rest of the morning.

Hermione stood up abruptly. "I just remembered that I forgot my Potions textbook in my room. I'll meet up with everyone later."

Peter looked surprised, but barely paused for breath as he continued his story. Remus took the opportunity to stand up as well, and followed Hermione out of the Great Hall.

"I didn't know you hated him that much," Remus laughed. "Everyone knows you don't need your potions textbook, Hel."

Hermione blushed, but accepted the praise for what it was. Snape taught a much more advanced curriculum in her time, because much of what Slughorn was teaching now she had already learned in her fifth year. She supposed that Snape had briefed him last year about what they learned already so he didn't cover it twice, but, in 1976, she felt like she could takes the NEWTs now and pass. Lily was actually quite jealous, though she tried to hide it. Hermione of course wasn't better than Snape himself, but once Slughorn understood that Hermione had a more rigorous curriculum in her "home country," he made her partners with Snape, the best in the class. Twenty years in the past and she was still learning Potions from Professor Snape! But she couldn't complain, really. It was just one less class she had to study for.

"You know as well as I do that if we let him go on for much longer he would never stop," Hermione replied. Peter had a love/hate relationship with Professor Flitwick. "You couldn't have thought of another way to distract him?"

"I didn't exactly see you jumping in to save the day," Remus teased. "I had all of a half a second to think of something so Lily and James didn't immediately break-up of embarrassment."

"Yeah, well, they'll have about a day to adjust. People are going to start noticing them staring at each other with love instead of hate soon."

"Ah, you may be wrong there. James has always looked at Lily with love," Remus informed her. "Ever since day one when she hexed him on the train for making fun of Snape. It was like love at first sight."

"Or hate, in her case," Hermione replied, ignoring the bit about Snape.

"Speaking of love-filled looks, were Alice and Frank more…in love than usual today?" Remus asked.

"I noticed that too!" she exclaimed. "Maybe they just had a good night? I don't know."

"I don't know either," Remus frowned. "Could you ask her about it?"

"Why don't you ask Frank?"

"Guys don't talk about stuff like that."

"You're talking about it now."

"Yeah, but with you, and you're a girl, so it's okay."

"A secret romantic, Remus?"

"You didn't know? I'm the most popular women's romance writer this side of the Channel!"

"That's right. You wrote that one about the dangerous Scottish noble in a kilt."

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and they both burst out laughing.

"Oh, Remus. What do I need girlfriends for when I have you?" Hermione asked happily. Harry and Ron were always just that – guy friends. And Ginny was just a girl friend. She didn't have that best friend who had the straightforward male thinking she needed and yet still picked up on subtleties only women could. Except maybe Luna. But she was a whole separate story.

"Fine. I'll ask Alice, but try to be subtle about finding something out from Frank," she continued.

"And we'll reconvene with our findings over butterbeer after work Saturday?" Remus suggested.

"Perfect!" Hermione exclaimed. "I haven't had a butterbeer since– Um… Could you meet me after work? I don't know the way from there."

"No problem," Remus said, looking at her a little strangely.

She winced. She was really going to have to get better at this whole lying about your past bit.

"I really did forget my potions text, though," she lied, desperate to not fudge up her past even more. "I'll see you there!"

She ran off towards the Head Girl's room, leaving Remus as confused as Peter over her sudden mood swings.

"Do you know the basis for the existence of magic, Miss Grey?"

Later that night, she was sitting across from Dumbledore in his office, resisting the urge to take out a quill and parchment.

"No," she replied sadly and honestly. "I'm afraid that was never covered in my first-year classes, and Professor McGonagall was rather vague about it when I asked her."

"You are, of course, aware of Darwin's Theory of Evolution?"

"Survival of the fittest," Hermione replied, curious about where this was leading.

"In the muggle world, aren't there some people who are called lactose intolerant?" Dumbledore asked, leading her with the question.

"Yes. They can't have dairy products without feeling sick afterwards, because they're unable to metabolize lactose."

"Why is that?"

"Well, it's sometimes based on environmental factors, but more often than not it's genetic," Hermione answered.

"Could explain what you mean by that?" Dumbledore said, confident she'd figure out the direction of the discussion soon.

"Humans simply weren't made to consume so much dairy. Almost all of our dairy consumption, biologically speaking, is supposed to be within the first four years of life when mothers breast-feed. But a mutation on one of our chromosomes made lactose tolerance a dominant allele, while lactose intolerance is a recessive allele. Therefore, as humans interbred through thousands of years, most people now have that dominant mutation of lactose tolerance. Lactose intolerance, though once normal for all humans, is now rare," she recited

"Now I'm going to ask you to make a bit of a leap. How do you think lactose intolerance is similar to magic?

Hermione thought for a moment, and then answered, "Magic must be recessive. It's so rare, after all, and the majority of humans in the world are either squibs or muggles. And in order for muggleborns to exist, both parents had to have had at least one magical ancestor in their background."

"And this wouldn't be as difficult as it appears…" Dumbledore prompted.

"No, of course not, because if you're paralleling lactose intolerance to magic, why then at one point in history everyone was magical!" Hermione exclaimed, entranced by the idea. "And so muggle genes are merely dominant mutations! That's incredible. And it would explain the birth rate in the wizarding world. If everyone in them magical world had the recessive allele, then there's likely to be other genetic similarities, as well. If the genetics are too similar between the couple…"

"Absolutely correct, Miss Grey," he said, smiling.

"But sir, that doesn't explain how one's magical reserve can be so low," she said, frowning. "That would only make sense if magic was like… a particle in the air."

"Here's the next leap we have to make. What if the gene merely allowed us to channel magic?" he suggested, wondering what she would make of that.

She frowned. "Like our wands? We can do magic without our wands, of course, but it takes enormous skill or uncontrolled emotion. We would have the gene that makes us magical, but the magic is in the air around us? Like an element? So the magic isn't inside us?"

"More or less. Your comparison was very good. Think of magic as an element in the air, like oxygen or nitrogen. The gene allows us to draw the magic out of the air and concentrate it into a single form, such as a spell. Wands help us do this, but like you said, any strong force can pull the magic as well."

"And if we pull too much of it out of the air at any given time…" Hermione began, chasing the thought.

"Which is, of course, very rare. It would only happen if say you were trapped in an airtight container and doomed to suffocate. If you tried using spell and after spell to get out and nothing worked, eventually you would not only be exhausted from lack of oxygen, but unable to perform any more magic because all of the magic was used already."

"So my glamour works by pulling a certain amount of magic out of the air constantly?" Hermione asked, looking at her reflection in one of the silver objects adorning Dumbledore's desk.

"Precisely. Which is why you have to be careful any time you're performing a great deal of magic in a very short time, especially with other people around. Hogwarts isn't isolated so far from civilization just to hide it from muggles, you know. We here have access to the air for miles around," he said matter-of-factly.

"But then how is the magic regenerated?" Hermione asked. "It can't just disappear forever, or there'd be no magic left in the world."

Dumbledore laughed, throwing Hermione for a loop. She didn't think that was a silly question at all.

"You truly are the brightest witch of your age. And, I daresay, of several others as well. Nobody thought of how the magic is regenerated for centuries. A decade or so ago, some American theorists and scientists starting working on it. They noticed a correlation between water and magical strength. That is to say, towns and cities near a lake or the sea or another large body of water had a stronger magical capability and less instances of the loss of magical reserves. They believe that the element released when a spell is completed, the carbon dioxide of magic, so to speak, is somehow restored to magic by a process involving water. They haven't quite figured out the exact scientific way this is done, but we've come a long way."

"That makes sense," Hermione said thoughtfully.

"Each person has some magic that clings to them. There's a bit of air that follows every person around, just because your body attracts it almost magnetically. This is the magic that most people work with, and that's where magical signatures come from. Truly powerful witches and wizards are able to harness the magic of the air around them for miles."

"Like Voldemort," she frowned. "Maybe that's the key to destroying him. Is there any way one could limit the amount of magic that someone else is exposed to, short of putting them in a box?"

"That wanders into dangerous territory, Miss Grey. If we could figure out how to limit their magic, it wouldn't be long until they could figure out to limit our magic. And if we were to choose a battle field far away from the sea, say, then we run the risk of depleting our magical reserves as much as theirs," Dumbledore said, looking fondly at the girl who was trying to solve all the world's problems. "In any case, as long as you understand the basic of magical theory, you should be able to manage without your glamour accidentally falling off. The only other way to remove it is to stare at your reflection for about a minute, willing the magic to be at ease and drop the form."

"And to put it back on?" she asked, and he frowned at her.

"I would not suggest taking it off every night and putting it back on in the morning, if that's what you're considering," he told her.

"No, not at all!" she exclaimed. "But I do need to know how to put my own glamour on."

"Merely do the same thing in the reflection, summoning the magic to take the form," he said, conceding to her logic.

"Is that like wandless magic, then?" she asked, and he nodded.

"In a way. But there is neither an incantation nor a need for a wand for this particular spell. A wrong flick of the wrist might make you come out looking like a fish on accident."

Hermione laughed. "That's very true, I suppose. I should like to learn wandless magic one day."

"There are several books in the Restricted Section on the topic. As you're in a NEWT-level DADA class, you should be able to access them freely," Dumbledore told her, positive that now she would have wandless magic mastered by graduation, even with the hindrance of a 24/7 magical depletion.

She thanked him gratefully, then, remembering one of their original purposes, thanked him again for finding her a job.

"Oh, it was no problem at all," he said, dismissing it. "We usually have one student working at every shop, and Scrivenshaft's employee graduated last year. They were asking me for a replacement, anyway. And I know that you take your work seriously, so I was happy to recommend you."

"Remus says he works at Gladrag's," she said, interested in the program he had going.

"Splendid! He can show you the ropes, in a way. Most of the retail positions are very similar. You get paid a galleon an hour, and work a ten hour day from eight until six. You help with opening, but not closing. Or something like that. Frankly the details aren't known to me, but all the students seem very happy with their jobs," he said cheerfully. She nodded. Remus had certainly perked up when she mentioned Hogsmeade, after all.

"So I should show up at Scrivenshaft's a couple minutes before eight?" she asked.

"That would be ideal. And then merely introduce yourself to the owners, and your first day can be learning on your feet! Don't worry; I don't think they receive much business from the students, and the students who do shop there tend to know exactly what they're going for."

"I know," she laughed. "I used to be one of them."

"How did I know?" he asked, smiling. "Well, if that's all, Miss Grey, you should head back to your dormitory. Curfew is soon."

Hermione looked at the clock and realized that curfew was indeed drawing near. She rose and thanked him again for his time.

"Please never hesitate to come to me at any time. Any problems or non-problems you seem to be having I would be more than happy to address," he said.

"You've been so helpful with the entire transition, sir," she said. "I don't know how I could ever thank you enough."

"Somehow I'm sure you'll think of something," he laughed, and they parted.

She began the walk down the spiral staircase, mulling over magical theory and wandless magic. When the door opened, however, she walked out straight into Remus Lupin.

"Remus!" she exclaimed as he said,

"Helen!" at the same time.

"What are you doing here?" they asked simultaneously again. They laughed, and then Hermione explained.

"He called me to talk about me starting work on Saturday."

"Oh," Remus replied lamely.

"What about you?" she asked, when it seemed obvious that he wasn't going to tell her on his own.

"Oh, um…We just, uh, meet sometimes. Like once a month or whatever," he said vaguely, but Hermione understood that Dumbledore was just checking in with him and how school was going for a werewolf, in the same way he was checking in with her and how school was going for someone from twenty years in the future. She decided not to push it, and Remus seemed grateful.

"That's nice," she said, and Remus rewarded her concession to his privacy.

"I heard about Alice and Frank," he told her excitedly.

"Did you?" she asked. "Frank was eager to talk, then? What happened?"

"They got engaged."

"Engaged?" Hermione shrieked, feeling her life flash before her far too quickly. "They're only seventeen!"

"Frank's eighteen, and they're both of age. He asked her parents for permission, and his mother supported the match. He gave her a ring that's been in his family for ages," Remus said, and Hermione found herself examining pureblood culture much closer than she ever would have thought.

"That's incredible," she breathed, and Remus nodded.

"They've only been going out for a year, but well… With the politics going on now everyone's eager to settle down quick. And they're both smart, and they'll definitely be Aurors like they want to. I've never seen a couple more in love."

"I'm so happy for them," she said honestly, and started wondering when Lily and James were going to get married now.

"Just keep it quiet, okay? They're going to tell everyone on Saturday, and Frank made me promise not to tell anyone."

"Tsk tsk, Mr. Lupin. I never took you for an oath-breaker," she teased.

"I promised you I'd share information first," he reasoned, but grinned back at her. "We're all going to meet in the Three Broomsticks after we get off work and Sirius gets off detention. They're going to buy us all butterbeers and announce it, so act surprised."

"Will do. I can't wait."

"I better go. Dumbledore's waiting for me. I'll catch you tomorrow morning."

"See you then!" she said, and they hugged before Hermione ran back off to her dormitory, determined to start taking pictures of Frank and Alice for Neville, too.