"Wars are won on the training ground, not on the battlefield."
General Philip Sheridan
The members of the Order of the Phoenix were all gathered in the lounge of their headquarters for the first time in a long time. They didn't always meet together because of time constraints, everyone had their own obligations, but if Dumbledore had decided to do so, he certainly had a good reason.
Everyone was waiting for him, business at Hogwarts had delayed him and some, particularly the marauders, were getting impatient.
"The amount of detention I got for being late to class! If I had known the headmaster was like me..."
As if to support Sirius' words, Dumbledore entered at that very moment. He greeted everyone before he began.
"Before I tell you more about the missions. Emmeline, can you tell us about yours?"
Emmeline Vance spoke under Hermione's thoughtful eyes. The witch was one of the only opponents of Voldemort to have survived the First Wizarding War, but Hermione had spoken to her very little. She had died in 1996, and her death came as a great shock to the whole Order.
"The Death Eaters are starting to talk about the Order, although they think we are just small opponents. However, they are suspicious of us, the Battle of Oxford Street has made them wonder how we got this information. But they don't take us totally seriously either."
"They will send spies."
Everyone turned to Hermione who felt compelled to justify herself.
"I don't mean to interrupt, but Voldemort is smart, even if he thinks we're not a threat for him, he won't risk leaving us alone. He'll want to know what we know about him, what we don't know, who's in the Order, who could potentially betray us, who's done it before. There may already be spies among us."
The Time Traveller controlled herself so as not to stare at Pettigrew. She had to use all her control to do so, but she succeeded.
"No one has yet come to my office to join the Order" Moody interjected.
"Not everyone is as direct as I am."
"She's right. It may happen one day" said Frank.
"What do you suggest?"
"Putting the newcomers on veritaserum."
Hermione's proposal hung in the air, most looked at her with round eyes, except for Moody and Dumbledore who had kept their faces impassive and Remus who had discussed it with Hermione.
"But... this is illegal!"
"Dorcas, far be it from me to take you out of your world, but we are in an illegal association" Hermione sighed.
"I seriously doubt that Death Eaters are not immune to veritaserum" Sirius interjected.
It was Remus who took the lead and pulled a small vial from his cloak. He showed it to everyone who didn't understand it.
"This is enhanced veritaserum, they can't be immune to it because we created it."
"Are you sure it's not dangerous?"
"We've tested it on a number of people. It's always worked. Immune before or not. I understand, however, that you do not want to test it for yourselves and believe us."
"There are also several other important points, the house is not protected enough. You only need a few spells to get in. For a headquarters, that's not very safe."
"What do you suggest?" asked Dumbledore to the assembly.
"We could use the Fidelius Charm" said Alice.
"No!"
Remus had shouted before he knew it. He hated that spell, just hearing him say it made him nauseous. When they'd had to do it again in Grimmauld's Square, it had been torture for him and Sirius. James and Lily's death had traumatized them deeply and it was partly due to that spell and he couldn't relive it. Hermione gently placed a hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"It's all right, Rem. Dumbledore will be the secret keeper, he won't betray us like he did. Everyone will be safe, no one will die because of this spell."
The wizards present looked at them strangely, but thank Merlin, Moody quickly changed the subject. They moved on to the missions ahead while Hermione tried to comfort Remus.
"Miss McKinnon, Mr Longbottom and Miss Evans, you will be tasked with locating their headquarters. This is of the utmost importance to what happens next and-"
"Not necessary. Their headquarters are in England, fifty kilometres from Boston, in a manor house belonging to the Blacks" intervened Remus.
"How do you know that?"
"When I apparated a few days ago," he glanced knowingly at the marauders, "I landed in a meadow and happened to sense a magical imprint. I couldn't resist taking a look. Yes I didn't follow Helena Grace's five rules of war, as a result I got hurt, don't do that," he said to the marauders. "I said I was there and they didn't seem to mind being discovered as there was little spell to disguise it. I saw Voldemort with Rabastan, Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange."
"Why didn't you say so before?"
"I was hurt. I knew there was a meeting tonight, it could wait."
"It's strange, though, to find their lair so easily."
"I could get you to move, but I think they've already beefed up the security."
Remus fell silent and watched his colleagues, most of whom looked suspicious. He knew of course that the Death Eaters resided there, the change in time had not affected that, but he could not possibly reveal that to them.
"Well, if this mission is done, you'll go scouting with Mister Lucas" Dumbledore decided.
"Prewett and Vance, you will be responsible for monitoring the trade in dark magic in Knockturn Alley. The Auror's office will not be able to hold it against you as you will also be investigating cases. Caradoc and I will be on the lookout for any small problem involving dark magic and we will send you to the scene. Black, Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew, you will spy on the Death Eaters and report back to Albus and me twice a week. As for you three," said Moody, pointing to Alice, Dorcas and Lily, "you will replenish the stock of healing potions, truth potions, all the ones we need. You'll also be on watch, which means that if there's an attack, you'll send us a patronus and apparate immediately to the scene of the attack."
"What? But it's too dangerous, I-"
"No arguments Potter. Everyone knows what they were getting into when they came here."
Hermione waited patiently for her turn, but she wondered. The assignments were spread out, everyone had had something to do, except her. She was startled when she heard Moody's cold voice calling her.
"Grace, in my office, now."
She followed him then, glancing at Remus where she could read on his lips 'what have you done now?' She shrugged and walked into the room where Dumbledore and Moody had just arrived. It wasn't really their office per se, but no one else was using it, so the Auror had decided to make it her own.
"Firstly, you're going to teach the boys how to do a proper tail, I doubt they're learned that. But it shouldn't take you more than a few days. Your main mission, it may sound strange, but we don't know it."
"Excuse me? I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"Minerva has told me of a way to destroy Voldemort that only you and Mister Lucas know about."
"I'm not going to tell you what it is."
"We've guessed it. That's why we're giving you carte blanche to carry out your mission. No need for daily or weekly reports, nothing."
"It will take several weeks, perhaps several months."
"But you will have to come back here at least once a week, if there is an attack, you have to come back immediately."
"Are you really letting him do my research on my own?"
"There's always help available if you need it."
It was a bewildered Hermione who came out of the office and motioned for Remus to follow her, she told him in a blank voice what she had to do, as he looked on in bewilderment. It was clearly not in Dumbledore's nature to do this.
"Are you going to tell us what's on your mind, Albus? We don't know what she's up to. You're not going to leave her alone, are you?"
"One person will follow her, they don't know him. He is part of the Order but has not yet been officially introduced. I'll find out what she's up to. They have too many secrets for just two people."
Meanwhile, those still in the room began to talk.
"This is incredibly sexist! You men go on missions and we women have to stay here and wait all day and play nurse to the injured. I'm training to be an auror by Merlin!"
"James doesn't seem to think like you, he didn't want Lily to do this."
"He doesn't have to forbid me anyway. Besides, why didn't you want me to go?" the witch asked.
"If there's a battle, you'll be the first one there. There will be fifty, a hundred Death Eaters there, and you'll be the first one there. It's very dangerous."
"And ninety percent of our time we'll be in that house, doing nothing."
"Like you said, you have your studies, you should focus on them. Pity Lily."
"Oh, I'm not going to be bored, I'll be making potions, reading books."
Hermione, with an accio, grabbed her training dummy and practised as the Prewett twins watched. Most of the Order had left by the end of the meeting, but the two wizards had offered to test her duelling skills while they were at HQ. The witch turned on the programme for wizarding duels only and warmed up with a few spells, before starting to attack in earnest. She linked spells together with disconcerting speed, she was good, that was a fact. Fabian and Gideon were watching her, trying to see which areas needed work in particular.
Suddenly, Hermione dropped her wand, though she had not taken any spells. She fell a few seconds later and blood began to flow from her arm and neck. The twins approached her, looking worried.
"Mudblood, you're going to die!" she screamed before a cry of pain escaped from her lips.
She screamed with all her being, bleeding profusely, before she screamed more atrocities.
"Crucio!"
Hermione's screams had caught the occupants of the house, especially the marauders. They watched in amazement as Hermione writhed in pain on the grass, a dummy casting spells at every turn.
"What's going on?" asked James.
"She was fighting and then she fell all of a sudden. She started bleeding and screaming."
"She's doing it again."
"Again?"
"She had a seizure like that in transfiguration. She was screaming in the classroom, it was terrifying.
"And what did you do?"
Before any of the marauders could answer, the dummy, whom the wizards still hadn't stopped, threw a cruciatus at Hermione who screamed even more.
"How do we stop this thing?"
The two Prewetts approached it, but it was moving too much to be able to deactivate it manually.
"What's going on over here? By Merlin."
Remus rushed towards Hermione, who was still screaming and struggling. She was screaming in pain, shouting 'mudblood' and 'crucio'. He saw the training dummy coming towards them and put it out of action with a bombarda.
"Do something, you can't leave her like this! She's suffering" Fabian gasped in panic.
"There's nothing we can do, just wait it out."
"How long did it take last time?"
"Over an hour."
"She screamed for an hour and you don't know why?"
"For that matter, why is she bleeding so much?"
Seeing that Gideon was approaching his friend, Remus stopped him with a gesture.
"Don't touch those wounds. She'd never forgive you" the wizard warned him. "You don't have to stay, she'll be screaming for a long time."
"We could throw a silencio at her."
"Sirius!" Lily scolded him.
"It's not working. Nothing can bring her out of this seizure."
"Not even an aguamenti?"
Remus gave Lily a small, contrite smile as he explained that he had already tried that with Minerva. He sat down next to Hermione, holding her down as best he could, preventing her from hurting herself in the struggle. She screamed and screamed and screamed as the assembly looked on in shock, empathy and horror.
"Why did she react like that? What could have happened to be like this."
"You mudblood, the Dark Lord will make you pay for coming into this world! Lord Voldemort will exterminate you all!"
"It has something to do with you-know-who" said Dorcas.
"No, it doesn't."
Everyone present, except the Time Traveller, turned to Sirius with looks of incomprehension on their faces.
"Why do you say that, Padfoot?"
"Look at her, the expressions on her face, the way she says mudblood, I don't know about you-know-who, but that's not who I see in her right now. But I don't see by what spell she can be possessed, by her. How did she get into the clutches of my cousin?"
Remus didn't reply, he knew that his lack of reaction would confirm what Sirius had said. Hermione had been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. That was a fact. The young woman was getting tired, her body was showing it, but she wasn't stopping. Finally, the final blow was delivered.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Her eyes, they are no longer glassy" Fabian observed.
"We don't have the sword, it's just a copy, just a copy. Harry! Ron!"
Remus leaned towards the young woman and slowly whispered 'Helena', he couldn't help it in front of everyone present.
"Who are you?" she asked, frightened.
"Hermione, it's me, Remus," he whispered so that only she could hear him.
"But where are Harry and Ron, we were caught by the Snatchers, I changed his appearance," she cried. But where is Dora? Has she given birth?"
"The events you're thinking of happened five years ago."
"What! But that's impossible... I was with Harry."
Hermione looked completely lost, her eyes seemed to be searching for an answer she didn't know. No matter how much she replayed the events in her head, she was still stuck in 1998. She looked at the people around her and her gaze fell on the Prewett twins, they were red-haired, almost identical physically, but they were not Fred and George. She continued on to Sirius and Remus, they were much younger than the ones she had known, and then how come there were two Remus? Finally she saw Harry and Ginny, holding hands in the dark. She got used to the darkness and saw that it was unfortunately not them. Ginny was taller and had a rounder face. Harry had brown eyes.
All his memories came flooding back, Dobby, the shell cottage, Gringotts, the Battle of Hogwarts, the Weasleys, Harry, Neville, Ron, Remus, Ella, Alex, the Guardians, Hogwarts, time travel.
"By Morgana" was all she could say before she passed out.
Remus looked at her, tears in his eyes. He swallowed them and then gently took her in his arms, went up to their room, tended her wounds and put her to sleep with a spell. He could have done the same but was unable to.
The members of the Order came back inside, there were not many of them, Alice and Frank had gone to Frank's house, Peter to his parents' house, only Lily, James, Sirius and Remus, the Prewett brothers and Dorcas were left, it was her house after all. Lily made hot chocolate and offered it to the others, Remus almost threw himself on it, the twins accepted but the others politely declined.
"Did we really see the same thing?" said Gideon, breaking the silence.
"If you saw Helena fall, bleed and scream for over an hour, then yes, we did see the same thing," replied his brother.
"What I'm curious about is how she could have been tortured by Sirius' cousin. But are we really sure it's her?"
"There's no doubt about it. James, you've seen her before, she had the same expressions."
"The only time I saw her was at her wedding six years ago, so that was a bit of a stretch. And she didn't torture anyone that day."
"But being tortured is a big deal."
"Bellatrix is never far away when it comes to torturing someone, even more so if they're not a pure blood. How she got through it without dying should be interesting to know."
"Maybe we should see if there's a file on them at the Ministry."
"We already did that, bro. They're white as snow. They do exist, but there's nothing on them."
"I think we should keep this incident to ourselves. Keep it from the other members," Dorcas interjected.
"Including Dumbledore or Moody? Lily asked.
The witch nodded and their conversation ended there. Everyone went to bed, Fabian and Gideon moved to their flat but did not fall asleep immediately. They both liked Helena very much, although they didn't really know her, she was very knowledgeable, very good at fighting, and although she didn't show it often, could be very pleasant. Helena and her uncle were hiding something, and as Aurors Prewett, they were going to find out what it was. They didn't know it yet, but nine people had already promised to find out and the only person who had done so had unfortunately died.
Remus was sitting on his bed, as he had been for the previous three days, staring at Hermione with a worried look on his face. The witch still hadn't woken up, and it was starting to worry him seriously. He had, with Lily's help, hooked up drips to keep her minimally nourished, but it wasn't enough. In just three short days she had lost weight and nature was not kind, it was her muscles that had melted first. She who never stopped training was probably going to blame the world for that.
She didn't want to lose her physical form, it was what she had left, her mind had been hurt badly many times. Remus was worried about how long it was taking Hermione to wake up. This was the second time he had seen her have a seizure like this, but the previous time she had remembered perfectly what she was doing before, had been able to explain to him and Minerva what had happened, before running off to the forbidden forest. Why was it so difficult this time?
He heard a knock on the door and saw the marauders, minus Peter who was still at his parents' house, enter. It still felt strange to be talking to them, when they had no idea who he was talking to was actually one of them. They came to see Hermione every day but to Remus' surprise, didn't ask about their past lives.
"Hello Remi" Remus began politely.
The only victory Remus had been able to take from the last three days was that the marauders had finally stopped calling him 'professor'. Even if Remi wasn't his real name, it created one less barrier between them.
"How is she doing?"
"No improvement. I really don't know what I'm going to do about tomorrow night."
"What's tomorrow night?" Sirius asked casually, earning a nudge from his best friend.
"Ouch, Prongs!"
"It's the full moon, you idiot!"
"Do you hear that, Moony? You sound like Lily. Evans is rubbing off on you too much mate, you'll end up leaving the marauders if you keep this up."
"Getting back to Helena, I think we should take her off the drip and lock her in this room. You'd also have to keep an eye on her during the night."
"The transformation could kill her, couldn't it?"
The other three wizards turned to James, glowering at him. Couldn't he be more careful? It seemed to be asking too much of him.
"I'll have to teach you tact one day, Prongs" Remus joked. "We all know it, but we don't say it."
"To return to your proposal, I can't watch Helena."
"But we'll be with Remus, we won't be able to do that."
"And you won't be in the same room, just watching her from the hallway."
"You don't understand. I'm the one who bit her."
The three marauders opened their mouths in horror. They really hadn't expected this kind of revelation.
"But... no... Are you infected?"
"Yes, Remus. I am a werewolf."
"But who? When?"
"I was four years old. Greyback always liked children."
"You were bitten by Greyback? So was I."
"Helena told me. She's so... She never blamed me, and when I apologised, she told me it was no big deal. When I had just handed her the burden of my life."
"What's going to happen then?" asked Sirius. "We can't leave her alone in her condition."
"One of you will stay with her" Remus decided, not allowing any protest.
"Moony."
"My mind is made up. I've managed without you for ten years, I'll have the wolfsbane potion and one of you. That will be more than enough."
"Besides, how can she take the wolfsbane potion?"
"Didn't I tell you? She told me she was allergic. James, you'll stay with her, you're the tallest, it will be easier to control her if necessary."
Remus thanked the marauders for their generosity, he was proud of his friends, he couldn't remember having grown so much since the end of Hogwarts. As a young adult he hadn't particularly felt it, but now, with twenty years more of hindsight, he could see that the war had changed them enormously, even in the first few months. The wizard made a promise to himself that he would not let the same thing he had experienced happen again. The marauders could not be separated again. He had to be the one to keep them together.