"There is no better exercise for the heart than to bend over and help someone up."

John Holmes

Lily left her dormitory to do her usual rounds. Strangely enough, this round was one of her favourite things about being a prefect. Her rounds had increased greatly since she had become Head Prefect, but she didn't complain in the least. It wasn't really the satisfaction of taking points away from the other houses, although Lily was fair and did take points away from the Gryffindors, who had a hard time in the common room afterwards, what Lily liked best was having a good reason to wander the halls of Hogwarts and observe the magic of the castle. She heard a noise in the Astronomy Tower and naturally headed there. She saw the entire marauders standing in front of a person on the ground.

"What are you doing?"

The four of them turned around in unison, startled. Lily had her head prefect face on, showing them that they were about to be scolded like eight year old.

"Lily my dear..."

"I would expect nothing less from the three of you," she said pointing to James Sirius and Peter, "but you Remus, you're a prefect! How can you condone this?"

"That's not nice, Evans!" Sirius interupted, to which no one listened.

"Lily, you forget too often that I'm not only a prefect, I'm also a marauder" smiled the prefect in question.

"That's Mumus, he's too nice and you forget that he's the most cunning of the marauders."

"Don't exaggerate Sirius, and don't call me Mumus."

"But it's Helena! What have you done to her?" screamed Lily, as she spotted the witch's body.

"My dear, it's two o'clock in the morning, if you could avoid bringing the whole castle here, I would be infinitely grateful."

"James Fleamont Potter! You're out of your dormitory at two in the morning! You think I'm going to forget that? You haven't answered my question. What did you do to Helena?"

"Before your sweet voice interrupted us, we were just watching what happened to her."

The marauders and Lily turned as they heard a slight groan from the body at their feet. James and Remus knelt down beside her. Remus tried to see if she was hurt while James tried to catch her eye.

"She's frozen. I don't know if she's hypothermic, but if she is, she'll be out soon" Remus announced.

"Harry, Harry, don't leave me!"

The group stared at each other, wondering who it was that Harry was that could put the new girl in such a state. James leaned over to Hermione again and stared into her eyes.

"Harry?" the young woman asked with a glint of hope in her eye.

"Erm, I don't know who Harry is, but I'm James. Potter as you call me."

The witch tensed and her heart raced. She seemed to be struggling against an invisible man and whispered 'Harry' from time to time.

"She's getting too agitated, it's not good for her heart. If she has a history of heart disease, it could be dangerous."

"And what does Mumus the mediwizard suggest?"

"Stop it, Sirius, Remus is right. We need to take her to the infirmary" said Lily.

Helena didn't seem to like this proposal and whispered 'not the infirmary' to James. As for the young man, he didn't really know what to do, his housemate was still clinging to his arm and wouldn't let go.

"What should we do?"

"She doesn't want to go to Pomfresh, we take her to the common room."

The other three marauders and Lily turned to Sirius who didn't understand why his friends were looking at him like he'd gone crazy.

"What, did I say something wrong?"

"Not at all Sirius, I guess we just didn't think of it" Remus replied.

"It's like anything can happen Black, you have good ideas."

Before Sirius had time to respond to Lily's dig, James jumped in.

"All right, let's go."

"How are we going to get her there? One of you should carry her."

"By Merlin Lily, we're wizards, a levicorpus and magic will carry her for us."

"See how weak she is? It could kill her. Yes, a simple spell like that can kill. Don't you ever read?"

Lily seemed to remember who she was dealing with and that, no, they never read. She was about to open her mouth when Peter spoke up for the first time all evening.

"I don't think Grace wants to let go of James."

Hermione still couldn't separate Harry from his father and kept telling James, Don't give up on me, you promised. He saw the looks on his friends' faces and Helena's distress and gave in.

"All right, I'll carry her. It's not like I have a choice anyway. Even Helena Grace can't resist my legendary charm. I was right, Padfoot, I am the more handsome and seductive of the two of us."

"You're dreaming Prongs!"

The marauders had long since gone to bed, but Lily was still in the Gryffindor common room at dawn. She had been unable to leave Helena in the common room alone. The witch had been restless for the rest of the night and Lily had done the best she could, trying to comfort her. The name 'Harry' came up a lot, but it was also accompanied by 'Ron', 'Neville', 'Luna' and 'Ginny'. Lily assumed that these people were Helena's friends, but Harry seemed much closer to her, perhaps her boyfriend? Helena's condition was more than a little strange, she didn't seem to be sleeping, but she wasn't fully awake either. However, whenever she became too agitated, Lily would look into Helena's blue eyes with her emerald gaze, and it calmed her down immediately. The 'Harry' became less fearful, like a glimmer of hope.

Lily didn't know Helena's story. Even if one day she became closer to the young woman, she would probably never know it. Helena had secrets. Lily was sure of it. Behind her mask of coldness, there were heavy secrets and surely an equally heavy past. However, Lily knew that Helena Grace was a good person. No matter how dramatic her life had been, because in the depths of her eyes there was pain, sadness that Lily hoped she would never know and a voice whispered to Lily that there must have been more drama than comedy in her life, Helena Grace would always be a good person. A bad person could not have the distress she had seen at the top of the Astronomy Tower. You can lie about a lot of things, but Lily had learned that over time, the eyes never lie. They never do.

James was awakened by a huge splash of water that poured over his head. The marauders had a habit of waking up like this. Each one took turns pouring a shot of water, preferably ice cold, to wake the others.

"Sirius, damn it!"

"I didn't do it! I'll have you know that I was woken up by a much bigger splash than yours!"

"Peter?"

"No! It was me last time."

The three of them turned back to the fourth marauder's bed, which was empty. Remus was the most thoughtful of his band of friends and hadn't waited until they were fully awake and conscious to take off. They rushed up the stairs and appeared soggy to the Gryffindor's in the room, namely Lily, Helena, but who didn't really realise what was going on, still lost in the depths of her memory, Remus and a few other early risers.

"Lupin, run!"

"I don't think Remus really liked the 'Mumus the Mediwizard' Sirius, too bad for you. For you too dear," Lily interjected with a small satisfied smile.

James, Sirius and Peter ran towards Remus and sprayed him together. Remus was quicker and stepped aside at the last moment. The water landed on Hermione and this had the effect of snapping her out of her hallucinations.

"Aaarh! Ron! You said you wouldn't wake me up like t"

The end of her sentence died abruptly in her throat. She was facing the three sheepish marauders, who were just as soak as she was. She became aware that she was in the Gryffindor common room and not the Room on Requirement or at least in Remus' flat.

"What the hell am I doing here? Can you explain this to me?"

"It's not our fault!" began Peter.

"Remus started it," Sirius continued."

If he hadn't shifted, he'd be the one getting soaked," James agreed.

"It's all his fault," they finished in unison.

Remus looked at them with a frown, he had shifted to avoid getting as wet as they were. He hadn't been the one to throw a jet of water at Helena.

"I don't care about that, I'll get even later. I want to know what I'm doing here. In the common room.

"Oh…"

The five friends looked at each other a little embarrassed. Even for them Helena's condition was a bit confusing, so how to explain it clearly to her.

"Well, we were walking around Hogwarts and we found you in the Astronomy Tower. You were... You were totally delirious. Lily was doing her rounds and found us with you. You were whispering a name, always the same one, Harry. You weren't unconscious, but it was as if you'd been lost, gone to another world. You were screaming, struggling, you thought I was Harry. You wouldn't let go and I carried you to the common room. We went upstairs and Lily was supposed to follow us. Which she obviously didn't."

"I didn't have the heart to leave you. You seemed to calm down when your eyes met mine. I stayed to watch over you, as I think my dark circles testify."

"You didn't have to. Really, I could have managed on my own."

"Grace, you don't realise how you were. You were gone, you weren't responding to anything we said. It took three blasts of water, powerful, to wake you up."

"Sirius."

"No, it's okay, Lily. Black's right. Thank you for taking care of me."

With that, Hermione left the room and headed for Remus' chambers. It was still early, but the traveller hoped that her friend was already awake. She absolutely had to tell him what had happened. Hermione preferred to keep things to herself, but she couldn't afford for this to happen again. This crisis seemed to be bigger than the previous ones, she had never stayed up all night raving before. Remus was almost always good advice and she preferred to talk to him first before asking Minerva's opinion.

She knocked on the door and then entered. She saw her friend sitting on his sofa, correcting papers. He noticed her presence and invited her to sit next to him.

"What's going on?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"You never come to me just like that, to see how I'm doing. It's not a reproach,"he continued, seeing her expression, "it's just that you only come to see me if something has happened. Every time you walk through that door without me inviting you I think, more trouble is coming. Am I wrong?"

"No, you're not wrong. You get on my nerves when you make that face."

"What face?" he asked innocently.

"Your 'I told you so, I'm always right' face."

"But I'm always right!"

Hermione raised an eyebrow, seriously doubting Remus' last sentence.

"What else am I going to have to deal with?"

"Well, I don't know how to say this, it's not very clear to me yet. We had a fight and I walked out of here. Unconsciously I walked towards the astronomy tower and the memories came back to me. I sleep very little, I think you know that. You must not sleep much either, right? I have a lot of insomnia and every time I do, the memories of my sixth year come back. Always my sixth year. Unlike my nightmares, where the time period changes with each new nightmare. During that year, Ron was away from us, for most of the year. Harry was the link between the two of us, but something broke in our friendship. He didn't notice Harry's descent into hell. It was a very dark time and I was doing the best I could to pull Harry back from the brink. But as I plunged into the darkness, I fell into it. You can't imagine the thoughts we had with Harry. Every night I wondered if we were going to jump, or worse, if I was going to find Harry dead at the foot of the tower. We never really came out of that period. We kept our mask on. Harry's condition might have improved when he went out with Ginny, but I think honestly it reinforced the feeling that he had grown up, that he could never live completely happy. What kept Harry alive was the weight on his shoulders. He knew that if he died, Voldemort could never be defeated. He stayed alive so that others could. For me, what kept me alive was Harry."

Remus remained silent after Hermione's long tirade. He appreciated his friend confiding in him, but he didn't really understand what this had to do with the so-called problem. He wasn't sure how to react either, so he decided to continue the confessions.

"How did you manage after the death of... After the battle?"

"Ron and Neville were watching me. The only time I was allowed a bit of solitude was when I was training. I'm not going to lie to you, when Ron died, if Malfoy hadn't given me the clue to the Jewels of Time, I would have died that night. I almost gave up. Many times. If I hadn't gone to Malfoy Manor and found you, I think I would have ended my life. You have to understand Remus, I was alone, I had no one to support me, I had no way to leave the country, I just didn't have the strength to live."

"I don't blame you Hermione. I was alone for a year and a half. Do you really think I never had that kind of thought? A year after the battle, I really thought I was going to die. What kept me going was an article I read in the Daily Prophet, saying that Ron was dead, but that you were still very much alive. My goal was to find you. What happened in the astronomy tower?"

"I sat down, and I couldn't stop my memories from flooding into my mind. I don't understand what happened. I was lost in the depths of my past. The scenes I saw were real. I was in a trance-like state, unable to free myself from my memories. The marauders were roaming the castle and they found me like this. Lily was making the rounds and joined us, wondering what was going on. I'm so ashamed, I thought James was Harry."

Hermione burst into tears and Remus took her in his arms as he slowly rocked her. He knew this would happen eventually, he had tried to warn Hermione, but the fall was no less brutal. Hermione was crying and it didn't look like she would ever calm down. Remus then did what any friend would do, he held Hermione in his arms for long minutes, waiting patiently for her to calm down.

"What happened next?"

"James carried me to the common room, I wouldn't let go. The boys went upstairs and Lily stayed to watch over me. She looked me in the eye, that was the only thing that calmed me down."

"How did you get out of your trance?"

"I took three aguamenti that were meant for your younger self."

"Just like that?"

Hermione nodded and that only made Remus wonder more.

"This is very serious what happened Hermione. Very dangerous. It's like you've gone back to your past, but not to the time you left."

"But that's impossible Rem', I can't go back to the present, or the future..."

"Exactly, and that's what I don't understand. But you described to me how you felt and what happened from the outside. You weren't asleep, so they can't be nightmares, but you weren't fully conscious either, you weren't just living as a spectator. Time magic is so complex!"

"Rem', I didn't see the whole scene. I was myself. I was like the Hermione of the past."