Time Is A Pretzel

Time Is A Pretzel

Chapter Two:

So Far Away

"Yesterday,

All my troubles seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though

They're here to stay.

Oh, I believe

In yesterday."

"This is ridiculous. Why should I believe that you aren't simply taking me off somewhere to lock me up? This Dumbledore of yours might be a crackpot old fool who won't do a thing for my memory," No-Name mumbled.

"Shut-up." The Marauders glared at her. After Sirius had sparked her temper, not an entire team of firefighters would have been able to extinguish it. She simply refused to accept their decision. As if she knew any better...

She stopped in the middle of the hall. Remus grabbed her arm, and she shook him loose. "I refuse to trust a man, whom I have never met before, with my mind."

Sirius pulled out his wand. Quicker than the eye could see, she shouted, "Petrificus Totalus!" He was completely frozen.

Peter slowly backed away.

"She hexed Sirius..." James whispered, a look of awe in his eyes.

"What's so great about it? He was so slow," she hissed.

Remus glared at her. She seemed to have no respect for anybody. "Sirius has almost all the Deflection charms mastered, not to mention the fastest reflexes at Hogwarts."

She shrugged. "Whatever."

From behind a statue of Nimbus Chastity, Peter snapped his fingers. "I can't believe I hadn't thought of it earlier!"

"What?" James asked while Remus performed the counter-curse.

"We could get the map!"

James gaped. He turned to face the girl. Before she could run, ropes flew from the tips of his wand, enveloping her. She opened her mouth to scream, and a flick of his wand created a Silencing Charm on her head. "Expelliarmus!" rid her of her only weapon, her wand.

"You're coming with us."

~

Ron Weasley paced back and forth in front of the dying fire. "She's gone!" he moaned for the fortieth time.

Harry Potter had taken a far more different approach. The Marauder's Map lay at his feet, scanned too many times to count. He was slumped in a chair, his head falling between his knees, his arms hanging limply to the floor. She wasn't in the Great Hall, Dumbledore or McGonagall's office, the kitchens, library, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, the Astronomy tower, the lake, and even though Harry had tried to vainly convince Ron that it was impossible, they had performed a Magnifying Charm on the Map to see if she had been locked in Snape's supplies cupboard.

"Ron, I have to admit I'm beginning to agree with you."

Crookshanks slinked out of the shadows on the girls' staircase and crossed the room to sink his teeth into Harry's robe.

"Go 'way, Crookshanks. I'm not in the mood to play." Harry feebly waved his hand at the cat.

He released his hold on the material just long enough to hiss at him, and returned to attempting to drag Harry out of the chair.

"D'you want out? Is that it?" Harry stumbled up and over to the portrait hole.

Ron's ears perked up. "Hey... Harry... Maybe Crookshanks knows where Hermione is?"

Harry looked thoughtfully at the cat as he sat on his rump right outside the portrait hole, waiting for Harry to follow him.

"What the heck," he decided. "That cat always knows more about what's going on than we do. Let's go where he wants to take us."

~

Robes, books, broken Sneak-o-scopes, and the occasional pair of tie-dye boxers flew through the air. No-Name would have shrieked when she automatically caught a pair with falling hearts, but the Silencing Charm prevented any sound escaping her lips.

'Too bad,' thought Remus. 'I would've liked to silence her myself. With a kiss.'

Sirius emerged from his trunk triumphant, waving a piece of parchment about in the air. "Here it is!" he grinned. Nothing could have thrilled him more than to wake up finding this impudent girl silenced with a bubble on her head.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he said, his wand tip resting gently on the paper.

Thin spider lines bled to the very tips of the paper. Rooms, stairways, hallways, and tiny dots with labels appeared. No-Name blinked in wonder, for once, speechless.

James quickly pointed to a tower in the top right corner. Five dots clustered for space. A simple magnifying charm made it far more readable.

A black spot read "Mr. Wormtail" in thin, casual handwriting.

A loop in red ink was attached to a slurred-together "Mr. Moony."

Navy blue wiggled slightly as the loopy, careless letters forming "Mr. Padfoot" formed groups and began attacking the other letters.

The main handwriting to defend itself was a scratchy, green "Mr. Prongs."

But what caught most of their attention was small, tidy cursive reading "Hermione Granger."

Peter, James, and Sirius all turned to look expectantly at her, but Remus merely hunched over the map and traced her name with the tip of his index finger.

'Hermione Granger,' he thought. 'It's a pretty name. I like it.'

Hermione was having thoughts of her own. '"Hermione Granger," huh? Well, considering the blubber-heads put a Silencing Charm on me, I can't tell them that it doesn't help.' She raised a hand to tap on the golden bubble surrounding her head, and Sirius removed it with an absent-minded flick of his wand.

"It doesn't help." She shrugged.

James sighed. "Oh well. It was worth a shot. At least we know what to call you now."

Peter opened his small but long mouth in a loud yawn. Hermione marveled at how such a disturbing sound could issue from one so meek and small.

But the action set Hermione in thinking. "Where do I sleep? I'm not sleeping in the bloody boys' dorm."

Sirius reluctantly pulled a warm knit blanket with a tartan print off his bed, dug a pair of Quidditch pants with tiny, flying Bludgers zooming around the print and an orange Muggle T-shirt that said in messy ink,

"Fugitive

(You Didn't See Me)"

out of his trunk.

Hermione flashed him a grateful smile and took the bundle he was offering her. She quickly said before she shut the door, "Thanks for all you've done. I know you're just trying to help." And with that, she left down the stairs.

~

Sirius snuggled under the Gryffindor quilts, but with his family tartan wool blanket missing, he felt slightly exposed.

An image of The Girl... no, Hermione... floated in his mind. His stomach felt compacted, as if someone had taken it and squeezed it until it was a mere pulp.

Without realizing what his subconscience was screaming at him, he began to think. 'She's not exactly dazzling, like Lily... Her hair completely and totally sucks, but she does have a certain charm and self-confidence... And what a smile!... She's not exactly some ditz who'll let some guy walk all over her... I'm sick of those. Does any available girl have a brain these days?... This one's obviously smart... She might even be a Quidditch player, with those reflexes... I still can't believe she beat me in an informal duel! That's a first... and I guess when you put her in her place, she gets bearable... Not bad for a girl.'

~

Remus grinned up at the top of his bed. Red velvet trimmings drooped down, loose, relaxed, and intriguing.

He decided he liked this girl. For numerous reasons. Too many to list, really.

'Stop it Remus. You're a werewolf, a monster. And she's... she's so lovely. "Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale. It doesn't happen in real life. She belongs with someone like Sirius, someone who'll protect her, not attack her.' He looked at his hands, somewhat expecting to see paws rather than hands, claws rather than fingers.

But the tiny optimistic part of his mind imagined her snuggling close to him. He grinned at the mirrors of stars that slowly shifted across their own enchanted ceiling.

~

Hermione slowly walked down the staircase. Thoughts, ones that needed immediate attention, bounced around her head.

She paused, fingers playing with the sleeve of Sirius's T-shirt, and her stomach clenched and her breath stilled while remembering waking up in Remus's arms without letting him know, where she had felt so unlost...

And then there was Sirius, who was kind in a sense, but more complex. The loathing had had first regarded her with sparked her mind, and she admitted to herself how intriguing he was. At least he had brought her back some sense...

She picked a corner to change in. Stripping quickly out of her robes, she pulled on the over-sized clothes over her skin and sprawled out over the couch nearest her. It was covered with soft red wine-colored fabric and gold thread patterns. An over-stuffed gold pillow had the words "Courage Is Not An Absence Of Fear, But Merely Ignorance Of It," stitched on with excessive curlicues and swoops. One of Hermione's legs was draped over the back of the furniture, her other foot pressed against the arm. Grabbing two more pillows ("Ignorance Is Bliss," and "Trust Only Yourself. It Should Be Enough."), she fluffed them and sat up long enough to stick them under her head with her hair spread out in a Medusa-like fan behind her. Of course, her hands were folded neatly over her stomach.

Her eyelids sealed shut with they lyrics to "Yesterday" floating through her voice and mind.