Anxiety churned in Sirius' gut as he watched Peter tour Hermione around Honeydukes. Some days were bad days for her, he knew that, but he had hoped that her previous good spirits would have lasted longer. That moment in the bookstore had alarmed him. For a moment she had seemed content, peaceful even, completely and totally in her element as she lovingly caressed the titles along their spines, but then she had stopped. It was like her whole mind had collapsed even as she stood, paused with her dainty index finger on a thin paperback.

He hated and loved her tears. He hated anything that hurt her, he hated the reasons she cried, but he loved that she leaned on him for support when she cried; he loved being what she needed in any capacity and hated when he didn't know what to do for her. He loved that his touch seemed to calm her, seemed to soothe her aches, and provided strength to her beaten down heart. It was more magical to him than any spell he'd ever cast.

"Is she okay?" asked James, his hazel eyes uncharacteristically somber as he joined Sirius in watching the duo flit around different flavored sugar quills. "She cried at the bookstore."

"I don't know," Sirius responded honestly. He sighed and impulsively gathered his hair back and tied it off into a low knot, his fingers catching to fiddle daisy charm. "I think…for now she is."

"Maybe we should have stayed in this trip," James lamented with a frown, also feeling the need to rake his hair in agitation. "She seemed to have been in a better mood recently. I thought this would just make it even better. But, maybe hanging out in the common room would have been for the best."

"No. I think she needed to come out. Rip off the bandage, as it were."

James didn't look convinced. Neither did Sirius for that matter. But what's done is done.

"She still successfully bought some books, so it can't have been that bad," Sirius joked with a strain in his voice as he lifted the bag full of new and used books that Hermione had chosen.

"Well, at least we know she isn't dying," Remus said, sliding up to stand with them. A shopping back stuffed full of chocolate bars and truffles hung off his arm. A mark of a successful day out for the werewolf.

"What?" He asked when Sirius and James gave him narrowed eyed glares.

"That's not a funny joke," grumbled Sirius, tucking his chin petulantly.

Remus just shrugged and stepped forward to join Peter and Hermione. He started pointing out various bon bombs, making her laugh with some anecdote or another about the various explosive qualities of the sweets. Soon enough they finished up with their pockets and bags laden down with sweets. Sirius took Hermione's candy bag, and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, like an old English gentleman. It made her giggle, leaving Sirius preening as they started walking down the street looking in at the various window displays.

James and Sirius had both agreed that Zonko's was probably too boisterous to take Hermione to at the moment. So, they decided to steer their group away from the joke shop unless she expressed a particular interest in going. Thankfully neither Peter nor Remus suggested entering the shop. Though, Remus had likely overheard their discussion and went along with the plan.

Fatigue eventually started to weigh her down. Sirius could feel it in the way she leaned more of her body against him for support and the slowly dwindling interest in the shops and sights around them.

"Lunch time, lads?" He asked their group, watching James and Peter discuss a muggle fringe jacket that was in the shop window. James seemed to seriously think he could pull off wearing one and Peter was doing his utmost to dissuade him.

"I could use a butterbeer," Remus agreed with a nod and began walking towards the Three Broomsticks.

They were several meters away before Peter and James realized they were left behind and had to run to catch up. They made it to the pub and the din of the pub was boisterous but not too crowded that they couldn't find a half booth near the back.

"I'll get us drinks, yeah?" Sirius asked and waited for them to tell him their orders before weaving and pushing through to the bar.

"Don't take too long with your flirting," called James before Sirius got too far. He laughed at the rude hand gesture he got in response.

Madam Rosmerta was manning the bar, her pretty face at ease with the lunchtime crowd as she slung drinks, sent flirtatious winks, and coy smiles. She spotted him after a moment and grinned her way over, passing by another bartender that was helping with the afternoon crowd.

"Hello, handsome. How are you today," she greeted, leaning against the bar. She dressed like an approximation of an eighteenth century bar wench today, with off the shoulder sleeves and tight bodice with full skirts that reached mid-calf. She liked to dress up for the job, but never adhered to one style as long as it attracted more customers.

Sirius leaned an elbow against the bar and tilted his head flirtatiously towards her with his most roguish smile. He looked her up and down appreciatively. "Wonderful, now that I've gotten to see you."

She laughed, her painted lips parted to let the sound out. Sirius had been flirting with her since his first time visiting the village when he was thirteen. She had found him and his friends endearing and played along long after any real interest on the boy's part came to an end. She liked to watch out for them, feeling a little protective over the rambunctious teens like an older sister would.

"The usual, I assume?" She said with a glance across the room to check on the other three boys.

"And a gillywater," he added.

Sirius noticed the surprise that widened her eyes for a moment as she looked over his shoulder. He turned to follow her eyes to see that she had spotted Hermione sitting in the booth seat, deep in some conversation with the others.

"Oh?" Rosmerta cooed, a sly smile sliding onto her face. "Who's the new girl? Is she yours? You've never brought a girl with you and the guys before."

Despite his best efforts Sirius could feel heat creeping into his face and ears. He cleared his throat and tried for nonchalance. "We're not like that," he said, with a voice that was slightly higher than normal.

"Oh ho! What's this? The Sirius Black blushing over a girl?" She bent over the bar and propped her chin in her hands. "What is this world coming to?"

"I mean it, we're not like that," he urged, glancing back over his shoulder. They seemed to be content and they hadn't started looking over to see what was keeping him, so Sirius turned back around and gave an abbreviated version of events. Telling Rosmerta about how he found Hermione, and her extended hospital stay. "So, we're keeping an eye on her," he finished lamely.

Rosmerta had listened, her face had sobered after she heard how he had found her, and now she was glancing around him once more to look at the girl. He could see her fully taking in the small hints that something wasn't quite right. "Well, she couldn't have ended up in better hands, it seems," she said, her smile this time soft and somewhat proud. "You sure it's not anything like 'that'?" She teased once again, taking note of the unusually soft expression of his face.

Sirius held her gaze for a moment, trying to hold back any reaction that could be twisted against him. He knew she would tease him forever. In the end, though, he just slumped and put his head in his arms. She always got what she wanted out of him. He mumbled into his arms, feeling his ears burn even hotter.

"What was that?" Rosmerta sing-songed, taking far too much enjoyment out of his misery. She leaned closer so as to not miss a word.

"I almost kissed her today," he said again, barely louder than before, but Madam Rosmerta had keen hearing after working at the bar. Translating slurred speech and picking out drowned out butterbeer orders had trained her ears for exactly this sort of moment.

Rosmerta didn't respond right away. The silent air between them made Sirius look up. She was looking at him like she had never seen him before.

She shuffled off to serve a pair of incessant goblins that had taken to badmouthing them in gobbledegook, giving them a beatific smile and added an extra sashay to her hips. They seemed to be appeased when she drew their attention to a few gold rings glittering in on her hands. Not goblin wrought pieces, but fine enough gold that had them simpering even after she returned to Sirius' end of the bar.

"I never thought I'd hear the word almost in front of the word 'kiss' come out of your mouth," she said with a comforting smile. Her teasing words did not match the maternal tone she was now using. "She must be something special if an almost kiss with her has affected you more than the numerous actual kisses you've had." She reached under the bar and pulled out a few bottles of butterbeer and lowball glass and poured a double of Ogden's. His usual was a single, but she felt he might need it.

Sirius watched her. "She is," he said, feeling extremely exposed. He hadn't let himself fully acknowledge this aspect of his feelings for Hermione, but after that moment in Tomes and Scrolls, he couldn't deny anything. He had belonged to her since she first said his name, and he wished nothing more than for her to belong to him just the same. Even if he had to wait for the end of the war. Even if it took him twenty – thirty years for him to grow into the person she remembered. He would wait, and wait, and wait, and wait if she was at the end of the waiting.

Rosmerta pinched his cheek as she finished pouring the gillywater. "There. You were lost in Neverland, boy," she said as she continued to look at him with that same proud gleam. She passed him the drinks and a couple of bar menus.

He swallowed, trying to move the feelings that wanted to clog his throat and cast a hover spell on the drinks and moved back over to the booth.

Hermione was feeling full, and somewhat sleepy after a couple of drinks and a meal at the Three Broomsticks. Her potions had kicked in as soon as Sirius had deemed her full enough to take them, and the aches that had been creeping up on her crawled away under their influence, making her quite content with curling up in the corner of the shadowy booth. Sirius had made a makeshift pillow and blanket for her out of their jackets, and was lazily stroking her hair as she drifted in and out of a hazy sort of almost sleep.

The boys seemed happy to stay put, no one seemed eager to do more exploring and she was more than fine with staying where she was until it was time to return to the castle. Their voices and laughter were almost as good as a lullaby. Sirius' large finger pads trailing lines and swirls of heat into the skin behind her ear, around the baby curls along the back of her neck, and gently stroked the spot she knew was scarred from Bellatrix's knife. He did that sometimes –subconsciously, she presumed – as though he could sooth it away. She nearly groaned at her own body's disruption of her peace when she realized that the drinks had finally passed through her.

She sat up, Sirius' hand dragged across her neck and shoulder as she moved, and bleary-eyed looked around the table. The exposed side of her neck felt chilled.

"I'm going to use the loo," she said and waited for Sirius to get up so she could scoot out of the corner.

As she made her way to the tiny back room area where the bathroom was, she caught the eye of a much younger Madam Rosmerta. The older woman sent a knowing smile and a wink, which confused Hermione, and made her blush even though she wasn't sure why. Instead of responding in any way Hermione just scuttled off to do her business.

Exiting the bathroom, the last of her sleepy, contentedness evaporated as she came face to face with one of the last people she wanted to run into. An angry looking Marlene McKinnon leaned against the wall outside of the door, her arms were crossed, and she looked down her nose to glare at Hermione, who was just now noticing that Marlene was quite tall for a girl, and towered a good two to three inches over her.

Hermione did not react to the intimidating posturing of the blond in front of her. The last thing she felt like doing was partaking in any sort of altercation at the moment. She was tired, and all too aware of the fact that potions were currently the only thing maintaining her relative good health. She also felt a sort of guilt towards the girl. She knew how Marlene died, not even five years in the future, with no time to really live her life, and though Hermione wanted to do everything she could to prevent all the unnecessary deaths and tragedy that would happen, she also knew that nothing was certain. A part of her worried that her presence ruined the happiness of the last few years this girl had. But, her logical mind knew that she wasn't culpable for any such thing. That even if her presence hadn't come to be in 1976 Sirius and Marlene never got together in any meaningful way. She knew that whatever unhappiness Marlene was facing right now was her own making.

So, when Marlene didn't say anything first, Hermione decided to try and slip past her with a perfunctory nod in greeting. Hermione knew that it would instigate her into spitting out whatever she really wanted to say. And her prediction was correct.

Marlene reached out and grabbed Hermione's arm before she could walk past and pulled her back with a harsh jerk.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you really think you're fooling anyone?" she hissed, ignoring Hermione's yelp as her fingers dug into the lacerations hidden under bandages and the sleeve of her sweater.

"I don't know what you are talking about!" Hermione said, desperation bleeding into her voice as she tried and failed to get her arm out of the taller girls. She had anticipated a verbal altercation, not to be physically harassed. Panic started to override her sense as the pain in her arm became more acute. She almost didn't care what Marlene wanted from her as long as she was let go.

"You keep playing the weepy damsel in distress. He wouldn't have batted an eye at you if he didn't feel sorry for you!"

Hermione reached for her wand, but was horrified to realize that she had left it in her coat pocket. She struggled against her captor for a moment longer and did the only thing she could think to do to get out of the hold. Her arm rose quickly and her palm came down sharply on Marlene's cheek. The resounding slap seemed to echo in the small dim hallway, but it achieved what Hermione needed it to. Marlene let go of her arm and Hermione backed away out of her reach. If there was one thing she had learned from Draco Malfoy it was that witches and wizards never anticipated a physical attack.

"I'm not playing anything!" She cried, no longer desperate but frustrated and angry. How dare she! "You have no right! To corner me when no one is looking, and throw unfounded accusations at me!" She was seething. The sympathy she had for Marlene reduced to nothing. How could she be so petty and jealous?

Tears had sprung to Marlene's eyes. Her cheek was a burning red from the impact of Hermione's hand. "I spent years waiting for him," she sniffed. "I pushed down all my feelings when he was with other girls. I kept telling myself that it wasn't personal and that someday he would see me and realize that he loves me. But then you showed up out of nowhere and he…he…left me! All my waiting, all my work, wasted! You stole him from me and I hate you for it!" She started sobbing, her words coming out in a hysteric flood.

"Sirius is not a thing to be stolen!" Hermione said, in a low, dangerous tone of voice. She was more than fed up. "I've done nothing to you! Sirius is his own person and whatever choices he has made have been his own. I cannot and will not be held accountable for them, good or ill!" Hermione was breathing hard, her heart raced like she had been running. "As far as I'm concerned you are the one who betrayed Sirius! You lied when he asked if you had feelings for him, because you knew he wouldn't have carried on with you if you did. Because he never wanted to hurt you, never wanted you to get the wrong idea or get your hopes up only for him to have to break your heart. But instead you lied, you did the exact thing he was trying to avoid because you wanted to change him."

The trickling tears sluggishly made their way down Marlene's face, tracking across her reddened cheeks and making her mascara run horribly. She looked sad and furious, and like the bitter pill Hermione was shoving down her throat had gotten stuck. It wasn't that the message Hermione was trying to get across wasn't getting to her, it was that Marlene was refusing to acknowledge that she was wrong.

"I didn't want to change him! I just wanted him to want me and only me! You were the one who changed him when you showed up!" Marlene shot back, petulantly. She wiped her nose inelegantly with her sleeve.

Hermione shook her head, wincing at the tension headaches that was forming. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Marlene, Sirius had already decided to end things with you before he met me," she said, trying to speak gently despite all the ill will she was feeling.

"That's not true!" Marlene protested. Her arms flew to her hips suddenly.

Hermione jerked back instinctively at the movement, flinching as though the blond had raised her hands to strike her. With a deep calming breath she decided to end the conversation. "I can't make you believe me, but as far as I'm concerned, you are so far out of line I see no reason or obligation on my part to try to convince you or appease you at this point. I'm not culpable for your feelings and I can only respond to how you've behaved towards. You've insulted me, hurt me, and have accused me for no other reason than jealousy. Hate me all you want, I have endured far worse than your loathing."

With that, Hermione walked out of the hallway, not allowing Marlene to rebut further. She trembled slightly, her nerves felt shot and it took all her strength not to show how terrified having her back facing the enraged girl had her. Her eyes darted around her, the crowd of pub goers suddenly didn't feel warm and inviting anymore, and she was acutely aware of the number of strangers around her. Her arm throbbed in residual pain from where she was grabbed and she was worried that it might be feeling wet, but she wasn't going to roll up her sleeve to check the white gauze here in public where a group of Slytherins fifth years were in view.

By chance, she caught the eye of a witch in green robes who had been standing near the bar. Minerva McGonagall looked odd to her in the relaxed environment of the pub. She approached Hermione with enviable confidence. She glanced over Hermione's shoulder and her lips thinned in a way that would have had young Hermione nervous, but had this Hermione feeling nostalgic and oddly comforted. It reminded her of being caught sneaking out of the astronomy tower after smuggling Norbert the dragon to Bill Weasley.

"Miss. Granger," she greeted, her eyes returning to Hermione's. "I was wondering if you could spare some time to join me on an errand?"

"Oh! Um…I suppose so. I'd have to let the others know, and grab my coat," Hermione responded. All she wanted was to go back to the Gryffindor common room and curl up by the fire with Sirius and the others. She felt tense, the panic attack that she had staved off from when Marlene grabbed her, lurked under her skin waiting for her to be pushed too far.

The thin line McGonagall's lips had formed softened as she offered an almost maternal smile. "Good. Then shall we?" She led their way to the half booth where the Marauders were all glancing in their direction looking confused and a little worried.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, standing and reaching for Hermione. His storm cloud eyes batted between her and McGonagall in apprehension. His fingers barely ghosted the back of hers.

"Nothing's wrong, Mr. Black," McGonagall appeased. "I've just requested Miss. Granger assistance in an errand. She just needs her coat, if you please." She gave a pointed look to the pile of jackets in the corner.

Confusion spread across their faces, but Sirius retreated and grabbed Hermione's coat.

"What's the errand, Professor?" Remus asked, tentatively.

"Nothing you need worry about, Mr. Lupin," she deflected assuredly. As Hermione pulled on her coat and buttoned it up. "It is neither arduous nor dangerous. I will make sure she returns to Gryffindor Tower safely and you can resume peeing circles around her to mark your territory then." She sniffed derisively as James coughed into their butterbeers to fight down their laugh as she took Hermione's arm and guided her towards the door.

Hermione looked back and gave a wave goodbye to the confounded and amused faces of the Marauders.