"Sometimes it's easier to say very personal things to a stranger. As if it's less unsettling to confide in someone who doesn't know you."

Linwood Barclay

Remus left the house and headed for the park near the Headquarters. He liked being out there, away from the whole Order, away from this bloody war. It had been three weeks since they had arrived and since then things seemed to be going badly. Deaths were raining down every day, muggle raids were being organised and the wizards didn't have enough information to be there in time to stop them. They had brought a book from the future that collected the biggest battles there had been, but that wasn't all, many battles were not mentioned. Remus needed to get away from all the dead and wounded. It reminded him too much of the dark times he had lived through.

On Dumbledore's orders, he and Hermione were sent on different missions and had very different schedules. They saw little of each other, much to their regret, and didn't talk as much as they used to. Hermione missed it very much, she had told him so two days earlier, and Remus hoped that they would finally be able to talk again when school resumed. He had turned down Dumbledore's offer to be a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher again, he had done it for their cover and he couldn't see himself being alone at Hogwarts without Hermione to support him.

He walked quietly through the park and then sat on a bench and watched the children play carelessly. He had never known this carefree attitude. He had been a werewolf since he was five years old and had rarely played with other children in this way, his parents were afraid he would reveal his condition.

"You seem to be a good thinker, Professor."

He looked up and saw Lily sitting next to him. She looked at the children and sighed.

"Sometimes I wish I could go back to that age, the carefree days I had, my sister and I were still on good terms, I didn't know anything about the wizarding world, about the war. I don't know why I'm telling you all this, I don't even know you."

"For a start, you can call me Remi, I'm not your teacher anymore. And sometimes it's easier to confide our sorrows to a stranger, he doesn't know you and won't judge you."

"You miss Helena, don't you? You spend a lot less time together than you used to" she continued, seeing Remus' questioning look.

"Dumbledore has ordered us to be put on different missions, he doesn't trust us and prefers that we don't plot in our corner. And you, are the marauders out? You're not the only one watching the others, Lily."

"James feels like he's drifting away from his friends, so they've gone out on the side road I think. But I understand them, they need to be with each other."

Lily fell silent and took a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket. She offered them to Remus, who politely declined, he didn't like them at all. He was not surprised that Lily smoked, after all he had seen her do it when he was young, but she was not supposed to know.

"You don't seem surprised to see me smoking. Usually people are. The Head Girl of Hogwarts, the Miss Perfect smokes, it doesn't really fit my image."

"In this world, nothing surprises me anymore."

"James would like me to stop, he says it's bad for my health. Doesn't that bother you?"

"Don't worry, I'm used to it. Helena smokes and so did my friends."

"Oh, they're strong for quitting then. How did they do it? Willpower? Medication?"

"They died" he sighed.

Lily suddenly looked horrified and began to fidget. How could she have been so tactless? She was always blaming James for not being discreet and careful, now she was putting her foot down in the most brutal way possible.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm really sorry" she murmured, mortified.

"It's nothing serious, it's been a long time. But they stopped before. A friend of mine got pregnant and her husband forced everyone to stop. He was very persuasive when he wanted to be. Not a day goes by that I don't think about them. Enjoy your friends Lily, they are the greatest gifts life has to offer."

Hermione was alone in the garden, moping. She loved this house, especially this garden, which was huge and gave her a break from the atmosphere of the Order. The house was Dorcas', her parents had divorced when she was a child and her mother who had died two years earlier had left it to her. When Dumbledore had asked her to join the Order with her friends, she had offered to use it as headquarters, it was far too big for one person and the Order would be much better off with a discreet place where all the members could meet. Some members, like Hermione and Remus, were permanent and always stayed there and others came and went, sleeping there from time to time.

She felt a presence behind her and turned sharply. She didn't like being watched like this, without her knowing who it was and why. She saw James standing in front of her, a big smile on his face. He sat down next to her but didn't wait for her to speak, he knew she wouldn't engage in conversation.

"It's weird, the Hogwarts Express left this morning. The first years have been spread out, there's probably lots of new little Gryffindors. For the first time in eight years, I'm not on the train on September 1st. And as proud as I am to have passed my NEWTs, to have finished my schooling, I didn't think I would miss Hogwarts so much... You may not understand my attachment to the school, but Hogwarts has been my home for ten out of twelve months of the last seven years."

"I know what you mean."

"Eight years ago, I met Sirius on the train, and I never thought he'd become my best friend, more, my brother. I met Lily too, her red hair made an immediate impression on me, the first time I met her green eyes I fell in love with her straight away. And then I met Remus at the dispatch and Peter in our dormitory. We soon became the marauders. September the 1st has always been a special day, for all students I think. And now I realise that this day will always be etched in my memory, but that I will never return to Hogwarts.

James paused and continued to stare at the horizon, the wall in front of him. He was lost in thought, reminiscing about his years at Hogwarts. He didn't realise until a few minutes later that Hermione was silently crying. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks, but surprisingly she was doing nothing to hold them back. James hesitated to speak, but could not help himself when he heard her stifle a sob.

"Helena, are you okay?"

"I miss them so much. "

James wasn't sure what to do, he'd learned to comfort his friends by slapping them on the back, taking Lily in his arms and rocking her gently, but he'd never had to comfort a stranger, at least one he wasn't very close to. He awkwardly took her in his arms and held her close, a little embarrassed. He didn't know if that helped or not.

"I'm sorry, I met Harry and Ron on September the 1st as well" she said simply to break the silence he had established. "I started thinking about them and..."

Hermione stopped talking abruptly and her eyes became more vague. James saw with horror that she had gone into some sort of trance, just as he had seen in the Astronomy Tower. Her tears had resumed and were flowing more freely. The young man did not know what to do in the face of his comrade's distress.

"Prongs! Are you coming? We're all waiting for you!"

Sirius then saw Hermione standing still, her body shaking with sobs from time to time. He walked over to them and asked his friend what was going on, James shrugged, he didn't understand either.

"I think she's having a seizure, like when we found her in the astronomy tower."

"What should we do?"

The two friends looked at each other, without moving, waiting for her to calm down, but it didn't work. Some members of the Order were passing by and saw Hermione convulsing and hallucinating. None of them knew what to do, some had shaken her, slapped her, but to no avail.

"Move aside, let me do it."

Remus slipped between them and knelt down beside Hermione. He analysed her with one look, ordered the Order members to disperse, in a voice that left no opportunity for resistance, even from those who did not like to take orders. He gave her an aguamenti before putting her to sleep. He took her in his arms and led her to the room she occupied. He sat on the other bed in the room and watched her sleep, worried. This was far from the first time Hermione had had this kind of fit, but the wizard felt that it was happening more and more often. Hermione was losing herself in her memories, just talking about her friends, her past. It was becoming more difficult to deal with. Against their will Dumbledore was sending them on opposite missions, and even though it annoyed them both, there was nothing they could do about it, he was the head of the Order after all. Remus was less and less there to take care of his friend when she was having her memory fits.

Without him realising it, Remus also fell asleep, his mind preoccupied. He wasn't awakened until a few hours later when he heard footsteps walking away, Hermione was trying to sneak out of the room. He called out to her and the young woman turned back to sit on his bed again.

"I'm sorry I can't handle my memories. I've had another fit, haven't I?"

At Remus' look, she continued:

"It eats at me, really. Not being able to discern the past from reality, but they're so strong, so real that I can't help myself. I've always been able to control everything and then my crises came and they don't, and it hurts. Because I'm not as unattainable as I show, all the members know that."

"You're not invincible, that's normal, you can't control everything Hermione."

"But I want to, and that's what makes me angry. As much as I want to get out of it, as much as I want to stop losing myself in the past, it doesn't work."

"We have experienced things that others cannot imagine. It's a huge weight that the two of us carry, the three of us with Minerva, but even she can't understand what we've been through. That's why you have to talk to me, Hermione. You're shutting yourself off and that's not good at all. I'm your friend, you can tell me anything."

"You're more than just a friend, Rem'. You're my cornerstone in the world."

"Then why don't you tell me? Why do you keep things from me? I can take it."

"That's the whole point. Ever since we got together, you've always put my needs before yours. You've always made sure that, despite the horrors I've been through, I'm the best I can be. You don't care enough about yourself. You've been through as much as I have, but I feel like I'm smothering you with my own pain. But your family and friends are dead, so I can't give you any more pain than you already have."

"Yet you need to talk about it. And so do I. Every time we talk about the past you throw a fit, but I can't talk about it with anyone else but you."

"I'm really a horrible friend, a horrible person. I-"

"Hermione, it's okay. Talk to me and then I'll do the same."

"It's been four years since Harry died in front of my eyes. Three years for Ron. But I just can't get it out of my head. When I do something, I tell myself that I have to tell them, but after a few seconds I remember that they are no longer there. I'd like to see Harry's smile when he's with his parents, Ron's smile when he's won a Quidditch match, in front of his whole family. I'd like to go back to slaughtering trolls together, to argue about Crookshanks, to worry about whether we're going to win the Four Houses Cup, I'd like to be in the stands at the Quidditch pitch, cheering Ron on for his great saves, congratulating Harry on his dive into the pike to catch the golden snitch, before I give him a hard time because he scared me, that idiot. I wish they were here with me, helping me to feel better. But they can't, because they're dead. And I can't get that through my head. They're dead, damn it! They're not coming back. I won't see them bitching about Potions homework, about Ron stuffing his face at meals, about Harry wandering the halls. I'm alive, and they're not. I think that's what hurts the most. We were never apart. In the summer I would leave my parents to be with them, and at Christmas I would leave them. Because it's cruel to say, but as much as I loved my parents, I love Harry and Ron more than anything else. More than my own family."

Remus had noted the use of the present tense, of course Hermione still loved Harry and Ron. She almost loved them too much. He was glad that Hermione was putting her feelings into words. It felt good to her, and to him.

"They are your family" he said simply after a silence. "It was the same for me. I found my true family when I went to Hogwarts. The Marauders became my cornerstones, they were the ones who accepted me as I was, they helped me when my mother died, and then when my father died some time later. And then I met Nymphadora. She became so important that I couldn't imagine my life without her, and in times of war it's very dangerous to think like that. I had already experienced it during the first war, losing all the people I loved, and I didn't want to go through it again. And then Dora told me she was pregnant. At that moment I really panicked, I didn't want this child to grow up like Harry, orphaned, abandoned. I didn't want him to be ashamed of me, a werewolf father... That's why I went to Grimmaud Square to join you. In the end, it was I who was ashamed of my behaviour when Harry lectured me. I've never been so angry with someone I loved before that day, but it was a good thing he shook me up. I'd like to play Slytherin pranks with the marauders again, I'd like to kiss Dora again, I'd like to hold Teddy in my arms just once more."

"Does it feel good to talk about it?"

"It feels great. But there's one more thing I want to talk to you about. Your seizures."

"I know what you mean. You've never seen me have one in Australia, or in Grimmaud's Square, and you wonder why they're happening now. That's what you wanted to tell me, isn't it?"

The time traveller nodded and motioned for Hermione to continue.

"I never remember having a seizure. It doesn't leave a mark, unlike the seizures where she controls me. I can't say for sure, but I don't think I've ever had a seizure of memories as such when we were in the present. Crying spells, anxiety spells, no problem, I had hundreds of them, but memory spells, never. I cried a lot more, every night, all day, until you came along. I always cried in the evening, but you helped me to get better. The crises started in the past. I don't know when the first one was, how I got out of it, but the one in the astronomy tower was certainly not the first. We've only been here a year, but as the months go by the seizures become more frequent, they take up more and more space in my life and I let them sit there, powerless to do anything about it, like a spectator to my own life."

Hermione finished her tirade by looking away, she was ashamed that she couldn't control herself any more than that. These outbursts were destroying her internally, she was making herself look weak in front of others and she hated it. It was an ordeal she hated, but in these cases she had no choice. She left the room, as if to say that the conversation was over. She couldn't talk about this anymore.

"They were talking but you couldn't hear them?"

"No Frank, they were talking, as if they were confiding in each other, but he was under a silence spell, which I don't know, I asked Lily, she doesn't know either."

"I don't think it means anything. Maybe they don't learn the same spells in Spain."

"They are hiding something."

"It's not new" Sirius intervened. "Ever since they arrived they've been hiding something. We knew it straight away. One more conversation isn't going to change anything."

"Mary found out their secrets and died, so I'm not going to risk it. I may be a Gryffindor but I'm not suicidal" Dorcas continued.

"Don't they have any business? The day they arrived they had nothing, yet they have clothes, they seem to have secret things, but where can they put them?"

The young adults present looked at each other, as if they had only just realised, which was probably the case for most of them. They all seemed to be thinking, and it was Remus who came up with the solution first.

"Her pearls bag! Her bloody bag, she never left it at Hogwarts, she had no stuff in the dormitory, she was never seen sleeping there and I never saw her without it. She never got rid of it."

"But it's too small to hold anything big. She can't even put a cloak in it."

"Undetectable extension spell."

Everyone present turned to Lily, who suddenly felt too watched for her liking.

"How do you know that?"

"It's the most plausible thing I can think of. All her things could be in that bag, and no one could hide it. That's very clever, you should have thought of that."

"We need to get that bag back."