"The world progresses thanks to the impossible things that have been achieved."

André Maurois

Hermione headed towards the Hogwarts greenhouses as quietly as possible. She had forgotten her invisibility cloak in the Room on Requirement and had left the Marauders' map with Remus, she knew it was important to him and she didn't really need it. If she did, she could come and get it, but Remus would have questioned her about its use and Hermione didn't want him to suspect anything. She had already lost time recovering from the full moon, the potion was so complex to prepare that she could not afford to wait any longer. She cast a presence spell and was relieved to see that she was alone in the area. Sprout must be in the Great Hall or in his chambers and there didn't seem to be any students like Neville, who was keen enough on botany to come and study plants outside of class. She took the plants she needed and quickly brought them to the back and forth room. She still had to steal some of the ingredients from Slughorn's personal stash, which was much more complicated. To be on the safe side, she cast a disillusionment spell on herself and entered the storeroom. She closed the door and heard someone enter just after her. It was Slughorn. He saw that the door was not locked and locked it with a spell. Hermione huffed and grabbed the ingredients she needed. When she tried to open the door with a simple alohomora, the witch found that Slughorn had blocked the door with a spell that could only be unlocked from the outside. She tried many spells, both white and black, but nothing changed.

She reviewed all the people she could call and there were very few. Firstly, because Remus was not to know about it, under any circumstances, and secondly, because she had nothing to write and send a magic note to and using a patronus was out of the question. She hadn't been able to make one for a long time, so she tried, but as she had expected, it didn't work. She searched the entire storeroom for paper and a quill, which took her a good two hours. Who would have thought that such a small room could contain so many useless things? She had found issues of the Daily Prophet dating back thirty years. Thirty years old! When she had borrowed ingredients from Snape in second year, it had been very easy, everything was neat, tidy, filed. She sat down on the floor, looking for a solution. It suddenly appeared and Hermione wondered why she hadn't thought of it before.

"Accio paper and quill."

The two objects passed under the door and into the hands of the time traveller. She wrote a short note and bewitched the paper to go and find help. She waited another ten minutes before someone came to open the storeroom. She remained unseen, lest it be Slughorn looking for something in his storeroom. The door opened on Severus, who wondered what Helena was doing in there.

"By Morgana's glitter thong, Sev'! You're a lifesaver."

"By Morgana's glitter thong? Really? What happened?"

Hermione made him promise not to laugh and began her story. Unsurprisingly, Severus could not contain a mocking smile and shook his head, wondering how anyone could be so unlucky.

"Do you have all the ingredients we need?"

"Yes, I don't know if you've got-"

"We start now. There are four days left before the others return, we need to get as much done as possible before then."

"I could miss class to watch the potion, it's not a problem."

"It's not a problem, you do it all the time, potion or not."

"You'd have to double the doses, I'd need that potion for a long time and a lot" she ignored his remark.

"Are you the one who's going to use this potion?"

"Not only. But partly, yes."

"But why?"

"I can't tell you that, Sev. Not yet. I'm sorry, but I don't know how you'll react. I know I'm asking a lot of you, an awful lot. But I don't have a choice."

"All right," he replied in a cold voice, "I'll do it, but I can't double the doses right away. Not until I've done it once before."

"Thank you very much Severus, I owe you."

"When do you need it?"

"Take as long as you need."

"But..."

"I need it quickly, but it mustn't be rushed, otherwise we'll have to start all over again and that will take much longer. It's a matter of life and death. Of mental health. If I could do it, I would never have asked you to do the heavy lifting, but you are the only one who can."

"Flattery will get you far, Grace, but it doesn't work with me."

Hermione was suffocating in the Great Hall with all the students present. They had returned that evening and the usual routine had resumed, no houses mixed, futile fights resumed. The young woman had become accustomed to seeing few people, to circulating freely, and she felt trapped between all these teenagers. It was at times like this that Hermione wondered what she was doing there. The age barrier was more than problematic, she was twenty-three by Merlin! Not seventeen like the vast majority of seventh years. She lit a cigarette, a bad habit she'd picked up when Harry died, not thinking that she'd become addicted to it and couldn't get rid of it. She quickly finished the first one and lit a second, then a third. At the end of the fifth one she heard footsteps approaching her and recognised the person's magical footprint.

"Black, I already told you no."

"And can I ask why?"

Hermione turned sharply and saw Sirius standing in front of her also with a cigarette in his hand. Hermione was sure that it was Regulus who had, again, come to her for help in fighting a duel.

"I thought it was your brother."

Sirius' face closed and his gaze grew colder. He'd had a good holiday and didn't need the news to spoil it.

"It's strange, he had the same reaction when I told him about you. You look a lot alike."

"I don't look like Reg'."

"He said that too. What brings you here?"

"Have you been talking to my brother?"

"That's what I thought I said, Black. You're a slow learner."

"But why?"

"He came to my table in the library and we talked... briefly."

"You're friends with my brother?"

"Did I say that? Not at all. The last time I spoke to him, I cast a rather… bloody spell on him you might say."

Sirius didn't answer, he didn't really know what to say anyway. He hadn't been on the best of terms with his brother for a long time, since he started at Hogwarts to be quite honest with himself and he hadn't spoken to him since he left Grimmauld's Square to go and stay with James.

"What are you doing here?"

"Like you, I've come to smoke away from the gaze of others. Smoking is not very well perceived here. People don't understand. It's muggle, even though there have been witch cigarettes for a few years, not many people use them."

"I thought that, on the contrary, smoking allowed you to sleep with more girls, that smoking accentuated the 'bad boy' side."

"The what?"

"It's a Muggle expression. It means they like your dark side."

"I don't need that side."

"No one likes to be reminded of their bad side, yet it's part of who we are. Without it, we wouldn't be the same."

"What are your bad sides then?"

"They're too dark for me to tell you, even for a Black. What's important is that I'm aware of them, the others don't care."

"I didn't see you like this, Grace, I didn't see you as a smoker, I didn't think you cared as little about other people's opinions as you claimed. I didn't think you were so dark."

"Why?" was the only answer Sirius received.

"Why didn't I think you were like this?"

"Why do you smoke? For pleasure? Out of habit?"

"A bit of both, but I like smoking, it relaxes me."

"That's the exact difference between you and me. You smoke for pleasure, I used to be like that, I smoked to relax, to forget my shitty life. Now I smoke to die."

As if to support her gesture, Hermione took a new cigarette and lit it while looking at Sirius with a dark look in her eyes. He couldn't take it anymore and laughed a lot, a very big laugh, which Hermione didn't understand.

"You can't be serious, there's not an ounce of optimism in you? You're young, why do you want to die by Merlin?"

"It's hard to believe in happiness when you've lost it, Black" the time traveller confided.

She then walked towards the forbidden forest, towards the dark trees, towards nightfall. Her ebony hair swirled in the wind and it was at that very moment that Sirius Black caught a glimpse of the darkness that dominated Hermione's heart. That dark force that wrapped itself around her. It formed a kind of cocoon that protected her but looked dangerous to others. This envelope was the exact colour of her hair, as black as night and the terrifying dimension was not far away. Sirius sat there for a long time, his cigarette butt between his fingers, his gaze fixed on the spot where Helena Grace had been standing a few moments before.

It was only when the stroke of midnight sounded that he got up and went back to his dormitory. James, Remus and Peter were already asleep and the fourth marauder lay in his bed fully clothed, but this time, even more than on previous nights, he could not sleep. His mind was consumed by the hurtful words Grace had said to him. The dark side of every person. The will to die, when you no longer knew the meaning of the word happiness. All of this Sirius had known all too well from his childhood, under his father's cruciatus and his mother's other torture spells. He knew the dark side of it all too well, but he avoided thinking about it, it was just stirring the pot. Sirius was a Black. He may have hated his family more than anything, and he let them know it, but the darkness was there, waiting for the slightest opportunity to come out. He had tortured animals under Bella's watchful eyes when he was seven, he had watched his father torture and rape a Muggle girl because it was 'fun', he had watched his mother kill the Muggle neighbours because they had dared to touch her by mistake. Those moments when a person's darkness was present more than anything else had made him dark too. Every member of his crazy family had their dark side. Even his uncle Alphard who had helped him when he ran away, even his cousin Andromeda who had married a muggle-born, they all had a darkness in them, more or less, more or less visible, but they had one, like Sirius. They had no choice, they were Black.

Severus was almost running down the corridors of Hogwarts. The bloody stairs had taken him for a ride and they kept changing direction, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had to hurry, Helena was waiting for him in the Room on Requirement. If they had succeeded, the potion should be ready tonight. After weeks of hard work, they might have succeeded. If the potion turned grey on contact with a mint leaf picked during the full moon, it meant that the potion was ready to be used and according to Helena, it would save lives. When he finally reached the seventh floor corridor he walked past the wall three times and into the room that had become a potion laboratory.

"What's up?"

"I was waiting for you. I wasn't going to do it without you, you were a great help. Whatever happens, thank you, Sev. You don't know me that well, you know I'm hiding a lot of things, but you still agreed to help me and not many people would have done that in these circumstances," she thanked him sincerely.

"Stop it, you're going to make me cry," he scoffed. "So, the mint?"

Hermione carefully placed the leaf in the cauldron and they waited for the potion to turn grey. After several minutes nothing had happened and they had to face the fact that they had failed.

"But that's impossible, I've never failed a potion before, except maybe once in first year" the Slytherin added at Hermione's raised eyebrow, meaning he didn't believe her.

"Failure is part of the process."

"You don't believe a word you say."

Hermione gave a small sorry smile but continued.

"It's true, but..."

Severus turned back to what had cut Helena off and his eyes fell on the potion. It was now a beautiful grey colour, moon-like if he was to believe the Muggle images he had seen. Before he could say anything, Helena threw herself into his arms, causing him to jump back several feet.

"I'm sorry, but you don't know how important this potion is to me. Thank you so much, I don't know how to thank you."

"Why don't you tell me why you need this potion?"

Hermione's smile faded, she couldn't possibly tell him her secret, it involved other people and she had to see if it worked first.

"Sev', I can't tell you, not yet. But I will tell you, I promise. I have to go, someone knows the potion better than me and they have to see it."

"Aren't you supposed to be having detention with Filch?"

"Is it Monday?"

Severus nodded and Hermione shrugged, she was going to miss it, it would probably only make her worse but it wasn't that bad. Hermione took a vial and poured a sample of the potion inside.

"No more touching the potion. I really have to go Sev', I'll see you later."

With that, the young woman stormed out of the Room on Requirement and rushed to Remus' chambers. He wasn't there and seeing the time, Hermione realised that he had to eat dinner. She then went to the Great Hall and entered quite noisily. The heads of most of the students turned towards her and Hermione thought that perhaps she should have been a little more discreet. She must have been in detention after all. She saw Dumbledore talking to Filch, probably about the detention Hermione hadn't been in. This was ridiculous, she was only supposed to start twenty minutes ago. She made her way feverishly over to Remus, which Lily did not fail to notice from the Gryffindor table.

"I need to talk to you Professor Lucas, it's urgent."

Remus' face lost all its colour. His mind was racing, wondering what Hermione had done to get into the Great Hall like that in front of everyone, it must have been very serious. He stood up under the questioning eyes of many of the students and followed Hermione down a corridor.

"Here."

Hermione handed him the vial and Remus looked at it in a daze.

"What the hell is this?"

Hermione's smile faded and her cheerful expression fell.

"It couldn't work the first time, obviously."

Hermione burst into tears at Remus' incomprehension. He hugged his friend and gently stroked her hair to calm her down.

"I don't quite understand. What is this potion supposed to do?"

"It didn't work, I wanted to succeed so badly, it was so important. But I failed, and now you'll be disappointed if I tell you. Sev' had prepared the wolfsbane potion with me."

Her sobs began again and Remus smiled a small, emotional smile.

"You made wolfsbane potion?" he asked with a big smile.

"Yes, I wanted to please you, so I could give some to Remus, the other Remus. But I failed, you didn't recognize the smell and you're the only one here who took it."

"Of course, it hasn't been invented yet. But Hermione, I thought you knew, the wolfsbane potion has no smell."

Hermione looked up sharply, not sure she understood what Remus was saying.

"What?"

"You succeed the potion. At least I think so."

"But, you told me it tasted awful."

"Hermione, I despair, we live in a magical world, nothing should surprise you. The potion is odourless, but that doesn't mean it's tasteless."

"So did I succeed?"

"I think so, it'll be tomorrow morning before I can see if I recognise the foul taste and another week to see the effect on the wolves."

A broad smile lit up Hermione's face. She had succeeded, nothing at this moment could spoil her happiness. They were going to have better full moons. Of course the transformation would still be painful, but no more bites on any body, no more dried blood all over the Room on Demand or Remus' chambers. Hermione could hardly wait to give the potion to the young Remus and see how he reacted the next day.

"I have to go back, but thank you Hermione, thank you for everything you've done for me."

"This will help me too."

"I know you Mione, I know very well that if there wasn't enough potion, you would give it to me. To me now and to my other self. We'll talk about it later."

The Hogwarts students didn't understand why their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was smiling brightly as she returned to her seat, nor did the teachers. Minerva gave him a questioning look, but the time traveller nodded that they would discuss it later.

The next day, Hermione rushed to Remus' flat at the crack of dawn and woke him up rather rudely.

"Rem', we have to try! Come on! I'm so excited."

"I didn't notice" he quipped sleepily. "I'm not drinking the wolfsbane potion without eating something first. Let me get dressed and we'll go to the great hall."

"I knew you'd say that so I went to the kitchens," the young woman confided, "now eat, we have to try."

Remus complied, grumbling rhetorically, and after swallowing a piece of toast and a cup of coffee, he grabbed the vial Hermione had given him yesterday and took a sip.

"What's the matter?"

"It's awful!" he exclaimed, wincing.

"And that's a good thing?"

"It's as bad as the one Snape used to make me, so I think it's a good thing."

She pulled a small box from her pocket and whispered 'amplificatum'. The box expanded, and Remus saw that it was a box, cut into several compartments with seven columns and two rows. On the side of the box was Rem' in gold letters.

"What's that?"

"It's your potion supply for this week. The seven columns are numbered one to seven for the seven days before the full moon and the two rows are for your morning and evening potion. I've made two more boxes, one for me and one for the other you."

"Hermione, this is huge, you did this in three batches, but how long did you spend on it?"

"I didn't sleep," she admitted. "Don't look at me like that, I did it to make our lives easier. I read in a book I brought with me what dose to make it work best, I found vials this size and duplicated them. It's not that complex. I know you didn't always take the right dose, that you were trying to find the potion here and there after my third year, but from now on we'll have the right dose and we can control ourselves. You, me and the other Remus. "

"I could have helped you, you know."

"I'm not sleeping well right now Rem', I can't help it. With luck, I might get a longer night tomorrow."

"Right now?"

Hermione shrugged and turned to the window. Remus knew very well that his friend was not sleeping well. She was sleeping very little indeed. Nightmares filled her sleep and when the sleep isn't there, the memories are. He himself woke up very often at night, and although his dreams were never very pleasant, at least he was sleeping.

"Wait, is it still dark? What time did you wake me up?

"I finished making the three crates, putting the potion in vials at about six o'clock, so I must have woken you up at about ten past six."

"Six o'clock?" he exclaimed. I usually wake up at half past seven!"

Hermione glanced at her watch and announced with a big smile that it was twenty-five past seven so he shouldn't be too out of place. He had just had breakfast earlier than usual.

"I'm going to go now, I've got a lot to do."

"I finished the book on Muggle combat that you gave me for Christmas, you promised to teach me, I'm still waiting."

"Of course, and I will. I can't tonight, I've got to make up my detention from yesterday. How about Thursday?"

"I've got nothing else to do, you know that."

Hermione nodded and headed to her common room, even though she rarely went there, it was the most likely place Remus was. She entered the common room, drawing stares from the students there. The seventh years were standing by the fireplace and fell silent when they saw her. Their gazes grew heavy, as if they were talking about her before she arrived. She approached them and turned to Remus.

"Lupin, I need to talk to you."

He nodded and stood up, followed by James and Sirius, and a few seconds later by the traitor-in-chief.

"Alone with you. This doesn't concern the others"

"He's not going anywhere without us."

"You think I'm going to kill him, Black?"

"We never know."

"That's not my intention at all. You don't think he can take care of himself? Lupin is not a dog who is lost without his masters, he is old enough to look after himself."

"It's okay, I can go alone," Remus decided before his friends could reply.

"Thanks, guys, I don't need you."

She motioned for Remus to follow her out of the common room and she walked a little way down the crowded corridors. The three remaining marauders looked at each other, bewildered, not realising that they had obeyed this girl.

"She has a power of persuasion, doesn't she?"

"I think she does, but she didn't use it on us, she used it on Mumus. He would never have agreed so quickly, do you think?"

"It's time I went and got my old cloak."

Sirius and Peter followed James into their dormitory and saw the cloak tucked away in the suitcase, but the strange thing was not the cloak itself, they had grown accustomed to its power, but the word he had put on it.

To the less intelligent marauders (yes, that's you, the ones reading this letter),

Don't bother taking your cloak, Potter, I'm watching you. Ditto for the disillusionment spells. I told you not to follow us, so don't. :)

They looked at each other again, not knowing how to handle this strange news.

"How did she know? Even Lily doesn't know I have an invisibility cloak."

"She's good, very good."

"What do you mean, Peter?"

"She managed to find out that you have an invisibility cloak and write this note without anyone seeing it and put it in our dormitory."

"What do you want from me?" Remus asked, after landing in an empty corridor.

For answer, Hermione took out a small box and silently enlarged it. She handed the bulky box to the wizard who examined it carefully.

"What is this?"

"It's a potion for you, to be taken morning and night, with food if possible, a week before the full moon."

"Why?" he asked, his voice trembling at the mention of the full moon.

"To calm Moony."

Remus's face turned white, Nearly Headless Nick would seem to glow brightly beside him.

"You have no reason to trust me, Lupin, Remus. But I beg you, take this potion. It will save your life."

With that, Hermione stomped off, leaving Remus stunned and confused, not knowing what to do or who to listen to. His heart or his reason? His courage or his wisdom? Remus had made his decision. He would not tell the marauders. Not yet. He didn't know if he was going to drink the potion yet, but what he did know was that his friends wouldn't understand his hesitation. It might seem strange, but he trusted Helena, she seemed to really want to help him. Even if swallowing a potion without knowing its composition and coming from who knows where was not very prudent. For the time being, Remus decided only to reduce the box, to slip it into his pocket and to join his friends, in the common room of the impetuous lions.

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