Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. All characters, places, descriptions, etc (unless original and created by me) belong to her.

Summary: It was a small pack, of course, just the five of them, but together they were something wild. Hermione finds herself in the Marauders' Era with four new best friends.

Chapter 32: Ariadne, Theseus, Dionysus

21 January 1978

The Halls of Hogwarts

"You're being preposterous."

"Am not."

Hermione and Sirius were walking along the sixth floor corridor. Hermione had just left the library and had been wandering the halls a bit aimlessly before Sirius had bounded up to her. And as usual there had been no stopping the boisterous young man.

"Sirius, James is not dumping you as a best friend." Hermione rolled her eyes for what seemed like the millionth time in the past five minutes they had been talking.

"Not consciously, but it's happening." Sirius nodded as if he was working with sound logic. Hermione shook her head and looked down at her watch. She sighed with a mixture of relief and reluctance.

"I'm going to be late."

"What for? I'll come with you." Sirius started bouncing on his toes like a puppy. Any other time and Hermione would have found it quite hilarious.

"Oh no, I'm not filling in for James whenever you miss him. That is not what's going to happen."

"Sure, sure, Pup. Wouldn't dream of it. Now where are we going?"

Hermione froze for a fraction of a second before covering for herself.

"Um, actually Sirius, as much as I'd like you to come…"

"Aw, come on, Pup! You can't be bailing on me now. Remus is already in bed with Pre-Moon shit and Peter is god knows where. You're my only hope."

Hermione looked up at Sirius' pouting lips and her heart sank. She hated this.

"Sirius, I–"

"Don't tell me there's someone else," Sirius smirked, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

Hermione was silent. How was she supposed to answer that?

"Merlin, Pup, I was just kidding!" Actual shock flitted across Sirius' face.

"What? No!"

"Does James know about this?" Sirius' was flinging his arms around causing a scene. Hermione looked around them at the several students who occupied the hallway as well. She turned back to Sirius and glared at him. She could feel her skin heating up.

"Sirius, shut up. There's no one else." At her words, Sirius' playful smirk slid back into place.

"Aw, there it is, Pup. I knew you only had eyes for me."

Sirius was grinning as he bumped his shoulder against hers, but Hermione could already feel something simmering under her skin. Sirius' touch sent a shock through her system that made her lip twitch. The inconsistency of the past few full moons had sent her wolf on alert earlier than she had expected. The itching in her veins had begun with a vengeance. Pup was there and she wasn't there to play. Words burst out of Hermione's mouth before she knew what she was doing.

"I'm meeting your brother! Happy now!?"

Sirius' face fell.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Hermione said. Her voice was still sharp and loud but tinged with regret. "Now leave me alone, Sirius, before I do something we both regret."

Sirius slowed his pace to allow her space to stomp away. He stood still for a moment, watching her seek out his brother, before he turned and left.

The Room of Requirement

Hermione burst into the room and slammed the door behind her. She made her way over the small table in the corner and began dropping her books and clothes to the ground.

"You have no idea what kind of day I had," she began as she leaned down to untie her shoes. "And then right before I got here, I ran into Sirius. Regulus, your brother drives me insane, absolutely insane. Ugh, I'm so glad we're doing this today. I really need…"

Hermione's words drifted away as she turned around to face the empty room.

"Regulus?"

Hermione's voice echoed off the walls. Minutes ticked by as Hermione stood there just steps into the room.

She was alone.

"Regulus?"

Hermione's mind, so normally calm and rational, was quickly spiraling. She had stood in place for an hour now, staring at the empty room, and still Regulus didn't show. She could feel her inner wolf pushing thoughts around in her brain, rearranging her emotions, and before she knew it, Hermione had collapsed into a sobbing mess on the floor.

She cried for hours.

Her noises sounded pathetic and weak to her own ears, but it only made her cry more. Her boiling blood had receded back to a simmer, but Hermione knew it hadn't been enough. Her chest hurt and her eyes burned and she had dug her fingers into her palms until the crescent indents left by her nails were spotted with blood. Hermione looked at her torn hands and the blood under her fingernails, and for the first time since Remus had bit her in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, Hermione felt like an animal.

She choked on a sob and smeared her palms on the front of her blouse. The movement of her hands caused the blood to streak in the pattern of claws, as if some invisible monster had tried to eat her heart.

Finally, Hermione rose to her feet. She picked up her belongings and left the Room of Requirements without a single look behind.

By the time Hermione arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady, her muscles were contracting again with angry excitement. Her veins popped under her skin as her blood threated to overheat. Hermione could feel Pup pulling at her consciousness, begging to take over, to ease the pain.

The Fat Lady was asleep, and Hermione vaguely wondered just how long she had been in the Room of Requirement. She opened her mouth to wake the portrait, but before she spoke, it opened from within to reveal a disheveled Sirius Black.

"Hermione?" Sirius' eyes shifted through a multitude of different emotions at once. Recognition. Relief. Affection. Concern. Anger. "Pup, what happened to you?"

Sirius reached out to take her arms in his hands and led her away from the portrait toward a small nook in the hallway. He ran his hands up her arms and pulled her a step closer. His eyes flitted from her mess of hair to her tear stained cheeks to her bloodstained shirt. He steadied her in front of him and looked hard into her eyes.

"What did he do to you? Pup, tell me." Sirius' walls crumbled as Hermione winced and shook her head, lowering her eyes. When he spoke again his voice was desperate, breaking. "Please, Pup, please."

"H-h-he wasn't there." Her voice was hoarse much to her surprise and Sirius could barely hear her. Hermione raised her gaze to look at Sirius. Her eyes were quickly drowning in pain and hurt and tears. "Sirius, I don't know what to do. It hurts."

Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't find anything to say, anything to do. He just looked at her, at this girl before him. This girl who he had never seen in this kind of pain and, as he was quickly realizing, this girl he never wanted to see hurt again. As tears fell from Hermione's eyes, Sirius' own began to fill with an affection Hermione could only remember in her dreams if she concentrated on a night a man had made her promise to return.

"Hermione," Sirius' voice was soft as his breath ghosted over Hermione's nose. "If there's anything you need…"

The levee broke.

Hermione crushed herself to Sirius, taking his lips in a searing kiss. Her tears smeared across his cheeks as she clung to him like a lifeline. Sirius stiffened for a single moment before moving his fallen hands to grasp Hermione's waist, closing the distance between the two even more. For a few moments, it seemed as if Hermione was pouring her very soul into Sirius.

But the blood in Hermione's veins continued to boil. And the kiss that had begun so desperate, so sweet, became bruising and determined. Hermione's fingers snaked down to tug at the bottom of Sirius' jumper. Sirius moved ever so slightly to allow the witch before him to pull the offending garment over his head. In return, he spun Hermione around so her back hit the stone wall. Somewhere in Hermione's mind a small voice noted she might have a small bruise in the morning, but the noise was quickly overpowered by the airy breaths coming from Hermione's mouth as Sirius attacked her neck.

"Padfoot?"

At the sound of Remus' voice, Hermione pushed away Sirius, who just barely caught the gold receding from her eyes. Hermione and Sirius' eyes widened at the same time before they glanced toward to portrait to the Gryffindor common room. The two canines fell silent as they focused on the footprints of their friend. Remus hadn't yet made it to the Fat Lady, but he was close.

Before Remus could pull a breath to call for Sirius again, Hermione had dipped under Sirius' arm and sprinted through the portrait hole, leaving Sirius alone with ruffled hair, pink cheeks, and a faint scent of lavender.