A Time Before Tears

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Reuniting Old Friends

Immediately after returning from the Owlery, Hermione stowed her diary and camera in her trunk. Then she lovingly placed her mittens on her nightstand before sitting on her bed and opening the envelope of pictures from Valerie.

Valerie's pictures, it turned out, were more numerous than Hermione could have ever guessed. The envelope was obviously magical, as it held what had to be over two hundred pictures. The pictures were divided into smaller groups by ribbons with little labels hanging off the end and a piece of parchment wrapped around the group. Hermione carefully looked at each and every picture.

From the moment she opened the package until she finally finished looking through them, Hermione found herself laughing, smiling, tearing, and aching. She laughed through a group of letters titled "funny." She smiled through the package called "best friends." She placed the package called "First Love" on the side. Then, of course, she stared at the ones in the "dance" package. Each of these packages contained a story or a monologue from Valerie. That was one of the best things about the pictures. It wasn't just that they were pictures of something that happened before; they were the illustrations that accompanied stories.

From the progression of the handwriting, Hermione could tell Valerie had written them over a long period of time: there were pictures of Remus and Hermione, lots of them actually. There were also pictures of James and Lily that Hermione put in another stack that she would one day give to Harry. There were pictures of the Marauders, one of them holding the map up proudly. There was also one where they kept popping under the invisibility cloak. There were lots with the Marauders and McGonagall. Normally she looked stern and they looked innocent. Then she would turn around and they would make faces. Sirius and Peter sometimes hugged her and she would glower at them. It made Hermione laugh.

Then there was the one photo that didn't make her laugh. It was the "movie" photo that Valerie had mentioned. It was the only picture that wasn't moving. Hermione tapped it lightly with the tip of her wand and watched, enthralled, as she stared at herself being put on the Hospital bed. Dumbledore was there and Hermione was shocked to recognize the photo as being from the day she left- Valerie must have snapped a shot without her noticing.

Hermione saw herself disappear into the sheets. Suddenly everyone looked frantic. Dumbledore pulled out his wand and start doing spells with it. McGonagall was right behind him, following suit while Flutey ran into Pomfrey's office, only to return a moment later with the matron. Valerie hadn't moved from her original spot behind the camera. There was no sound but there was a moment when Hermione knew that everyone was silent. Dumbledore still tried to work on the bed but that wasn't where Hermione was looking anymore. Now her eyes were glued to the impossibly pale figure who had just staggered into the photo: Remus.

Hermione saw Remus' eyes dart over to the bed. He asked something but the picture didn't have words. She watched Dumbledore reply and Remus run over to the bed. The professor kept trying spells but after a while, when still nothing happened, he looked sadly at Remus and the strong, beautiful sixteen year old boy began to cry. Hermione began to cry then, too, as the picture reset itself.

There were many photos of her and Remus and those were among the saddest. The most heartbreaking photo (besides the movie) came from the day with the Aging Potion. Someone, apparently, had taken a picture of her and Remus. The picture showed her and Remus, older, smiling and waving happily with their left and right hands as their other hands held each other's. This photo represented everything that Hermione had lost when she came back to the present and she wanted to burn it up.

In the years to come, Hermione would find herself looking back at these photos, replaying the movie, and wanting to cry again and again. Besides her scar, these were Hermione's only real tie to the world she had left behind and while she was sure that one day she would look back on them with nostalgia, on that first night all she could do was look at them with grief and sadness, wishing she could share them with someone and knowing she never could.

She fell asleep looking over the photos.

~*~*~

A sharp pain running through her neck woke Hermione instantly. She tried to move her hand up to her neck to massage it but found herself incapable of that small task. In fact, she couldn't move her hands at all. She couldn't even feel them, though she knew they were behind her back, locked around the back of the chair she was sitting in. She blinked her eyes and looked around the room, trying to keep her heart rate down. Where was she? She couldn't move! Why couldn't she move. This wasn't her dorm. This dark room wasn't anywhere that she knew. She was immobilized in a chair, in a room she didn't recognize, with only a single candle in the far corner.

Hermione's mind accessed her situation quickly as her heart pounded faster and faster in her chest. The overwhelming pressure of panic began beating down upon her. She was alone in a room that she didn't know. She tried to remember how she'd gotten there but she had no idea. The last thing she remembered was looking over the photos. Was she kidnapped? Had she fallen asleep? Was Harry all right? Was this a prank? Was this a Death Eater task?

She searched the room with her eyes, hoping for answers but finding none. She tried to call out for someone but found herself unable to make a sound. She began to struggle with her hands, trying to force them to do something, anything, but she couldn't.

"You'll kill yourself with all that effort," a female voice drawled to her right.

Whipping her head around, Hermione tried to make out shapes in the almost complete darkness. She tried to speak, tried to ask who was speaking, but still nothing came out. The woman laughed and suddenly Hermione knew who it was and felt any of the blood remaining in my face drain out of it.

"Oh Hermione," the woman said, stepping into the light, walking slowly and methodically towards Hermione, her shoes clicking against the floor. It was Noelle. All four feet eleven inches of her was standing in front of Hermione, but even though she knew who the other woman was, Hermione could seem to wrap her mind around the idea. Why was she there? Why was Hermione bound and gagged, in the magical sense? Her shock probably showed on her face as the next thing Noelle said was, "You remember me."

Noelle had the marks of Azkaban on her: taunt black skin and hallowed out eyes. She looked like death walking with the click, click, click of her shoes.

"You always were more clever than anyone gave you credit for, weren't you?" click. Click. Click. "I would take off the silencing charm if I believed for a single moment that you wouldn't bombard me with useless, dull questions."

Trying to understand some of this situation Hermione quickly ran through a list of motives for wanting Hermione under her control. Could Noelle want ransom? Hermione couldn't be worth very much, her parents were just dentists and Noelle was supposed to be rich, or at least she had been before. No that couldn't be it, but then why did she want- she wants Harry, Hermione realized a moment later as beads of sweat formed and ran down her still motionless back.

"If you're thinking I came here for you. You're wrong. I came to visit with my godson. I just know how much he would love for someone to tell him about dear Lily."

Noelle smirked then. It was a smile of triumph, as though Noelle knew that by having taken Hermione, she'd already guaranteed that Harry would be along shortly. Hermione wished she could disbelieve that but she knew her raven-haired best friend too well. He would come and so would Ron. Silently, because she couldn't make a sound, she prayed that just this once, Harry wouldn't notice a missing friend.

"Dumbledore is such a clever man. He put extra wards on the entrance to Gryffindor when Harry came here. He put even more on the boy's dorms. Didn't he realize all one needed to do to get to Harry was get to you?"

Noelle came over and ran a long index finger around the circumference of Hermione's face. She would have shuddered if she wasn't incapacitated, but as it was, Hermione had to sit perfectly still as the other woman caressed her face.

"And all one needed to do to get to you was to know the password to Gryffindor Tower. No one, probably not even Master, could open that portrait otherwise." Noelle whispered then, "But do you want to know a secret? I knew the password. You said it the first day you were with us. You said it by accident and only once but I didn't get such good marks in school by having a faulty memory."

Noelle backhanded her across the cheek so quickly that Hermione did not even have time to blink before the blood jumped out of her cheek and into her eye, stinging it and causing her to loose focus for a minute as she tried to blink away the pain.

When her vision came back to her, Hermione could see Noelle standing next to the candle on the far side of the room, smiling serenely as she quickly ran her fingers through the flame.

This was what Azkaban did to people, Hermione realized. This was why people wondered at Sirius' ability to still read and think in that prison, it was supposed to turn you into the type of person who could smack an old "friend" and play with fire.

The flames caused a glistening object on Noelle's left hand to glare into Hermione's eyes and momentarily blind her once again.

"Do you like it?" Noelle asked happily when she saw the affect her ring had on Hermione.

Noelle practically skipped back over to Hermione, whose head was still ringing from the smack and couldn't even hear the clicking. Noelle quickly extended her hand so that it was right in front of Hermione, ensuring that they both were able to look at it for the unbroken minute that stood between them. Trying to look at anything else, Hermione quickly found, did not make Noelle's perfume any less overpowering and nauseating; it only served to force Noelle to pinch Hermione's arm in order to gain back her attention.

"Beautiful cut, isn't it? Do you remember talking about weddings with me?" Hermione didn't remember but refrained from saying so. Her voice changed into that of a young girl, full of happiness, and Hermione steeled herself against the future pain that she knew was coming. Please God, let me get out of this alive

"Lily just wanted friends and family to be there. I wanted everyone to be there." Her voice suddenly changed again to one with crisp, concrete vowels, and carefully punctuated constants. "She got her perfect wedding, her perfect emerald ring, her perfect James, her perfect Harry.

"And then I took all that from her. James died. She died. And I took her ring and still wear it around my neck whenever I go to parties. I wanted her to live and watch as I raised Harry as my own. I would have turned him to master, but then my Lord killed Lily and everything changed. It doesn't matter now though, does it? Master is back and I will have Harry soon."

Click, click, click, went the shoes against the cold, stone floor as Noelle moved back over to the candle.

Noelle's long black hair still fell down to her knees but now it seemed less luscious and more thin, disorganized, and weak. It matched the rest of her.

After learning for certain that Noelle had become Mrs. Lestrange, Hermione had thought she understood what her friend had become, especially after the conversation with Valerie just a little while ago. She'd pictured her friend becoming somewhat akin to Lucius Malfoy, someone manipulating, calculating, cold, but never openly crazy. This woman, who used to be Hermione's sarcastic roommate, was none of that. She shifted so easily from hatred to happiness that Hermione did not doubt she would kill on impulse.

Bile rose in Hermione's throat and she feared that she would choke on it since she couldn't even open her mouth to vomit.

"Harry Potter will come for you once he notices that you're missing," she began in a matter-of-fact voice. "He'll come for you because an owl came for you this morning telling you your parents are dead."

The wind went out of Hermione's lungs. Her parents were dead? She hadn't spoken to them in months. They could not be dead. Noelle was lying. Noelle was lying.

"He'll think you need comforting. Maybe he'll even bring along the Weasley boy who cares so much about you, but do you know who Harry Potter will not bring with him? Fully grown wizards and witches. He'll come without any help because we're still in the castle and nothing bad ever happens in the castle."

Noelle paused for a moment to make an extravagant hand gesture and reach into her pocket. Meanwhile, Hermione began biting the inside of her lip, a small movement definitely, but it meant that she was able to break down at least some of the spell that bound her and so now she worked twice as hurt to move as she had before, but all of that effort stopped when Noelle held up the one thing she dreaded most to see in Noelle's hands.

"He'll find you because he has a map like this one- a map that Dumbledore knows nothing about. There are two Marauders' Maps now. It was easy to make a duplicate, hard to make the original. You brought back the original and I copied and left the double in your dorm, on your bed, where Harry Potter is sure to find it."

Noelle was chuckling softly, more to herself that to Hermione, and this time the younger girl had loosened restraints enough to actually shake with the sound. All of that sound stopped, though when her map began to blink red. She's lying. She's lying, Hermione kept telling herself, My parents aren't dead.

"I didn't think he would come so soon. Smarter than people give him credit for, isn't he?"

The short woman picked up the map, holding it in front of her face so she was blocked from seeing Hermione. The younger girl used this time to her advantage, pulling at the magic that held her in place, trusting in her own ability to break through it, no matter that Magical Curses and Remedies said it was not possible. She needed to be free from this chair and this room. Whether or not her parents were alive didn't matter. What mattered now was making sure that she, Hermione, and anyone who would be foolish enough to try to save her, did not die.

Noelle lowered the map just enough that Hermione could see her eyes. Backlit as she was by the hovering candle, this face a terrifying affect, and her voice was no comfort as she said, "What a nice surprise. No need for you right now. Stupidify."

~*~*~

When Hermione was able to open her eyes again she found herself stuck in a chair, unable to move, and it took her a moment to remember what was going on. As soon as the memories came flooding back to her, Hermione whipped her head around and searched for Noelle, registering only a moment too late that she hadn't been able to move her head the last time she'd been awake. It wasn't a long search. Noelle was less than a metre away from her and her eyes were unblinkingly staring at Hermione. Hermione's head whipped backward, shocked by the close proximity of those dead brown eyes.

"We have a guest," she hissed in Hermione's ear and nodded towards the other side of Hermione.

Turning her head, now very gratefully for even that small movement, Hermione realize her mistake a split second later. She should have never looked away from her enemy, wasn't that the first thing she'd learned from Lily? But in a moment that lesson flew out of her head, just as any thing else she was thinking of did, when she saw that locked into another chair across the room was Professor Remus Lupin with another candle floating precariously close to his head. An involuntary hiss escaped Hermione's mouth, the only indication that she was terrified to see him there.

"What have you done to him?" Hermione asked.

She was so shocked by the sound of her own voice that it took her a moment to realize what that allowed her to do. Once she realized it, she started screaming for help. She was rewarded for her effort with a streak of light blue light hitting her left shoulder. Suddenly ten thousand pelts hit her throat, making it hard to make a sound, cough, inhale, swallow, and even care about any other part of her body. When the curse a moment later, Hermione was surprised to find tears running down her cheeks. She hadn't been aware that she was crying.

"The room is soundproof but I still don't like yelling. It hurts my head."

"Why-" Hermione asked in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. It still hurt to talk, to breathe. "Why are you doing this?"

"I already told you. I want to meet my godson, the one who so many people have kept from me."

Noelle was looking at the map again on and Hermione used the time to throw her gaze over at Remus, who was obviously silenced and frozen. Hermione's mouth went dry.

"What are you-"

"You know," Noelle said casually, as though she hadn't heard Hermione at all. "When I was young I had a bit of a crush on Remus. When I saw his little dot on the map today, for a moment I considered using him instead of hurting him. He's very strong you know. But I quickly decided against that. You see, he fell in love with you all those years ago and was never the same after you disappeared. Plus, he lied to me and that is unforgivable. You lied to me too."

"What?"

"You told me you went to Beauxbaton." Her eyes turned into slits and in three steps she'd crossed the room and glared at Hermione, who shifted slightly in her seat, biting her inside cheek until it bled. "Why was it that in all of those heart breaking late night conversations you never once mentioned that you were best friends with Harry Potter? He saved us all; you ought to be proud of that catch."

Noelle wasn't even making coherent sense. There was no way Hermione could have told them anything about Harry. They wouldn't have known who he was. He wasn't born yet but Hermione could tell that Noelle didn't care about that little detail. She advanced toward Hermione slowly, her eyes locking onto Hermione's. Hermione pulled ever harder at her invisible restraints, breaking eye contact every so often as she glanced down at her unmoving hands, only to look up and see that Noelle was closer, closer.

"Or maybe you did tell some of us. Just. Not. Me. That would explain a lot. I never understood why they trusted you so quickly while they trusted no one else. I never trusted you really. You could have been just like Sirius' - " a movement to her left forced Noelle to look over and see Remus' chair was shaking.

Hermione exhaled, glad that Noelle was distracted from her, but also worried for Remus. What had he been thinking? Noelle giggled some more, hitting excruciating high pitched every now and again and causing Hermione to want to cover her ears, though she had no way of doing so.

Walking calmly over to Remus, Noelle spun the diamond ring on her left hand with her thumb, placed the rock on the inside of her fist. Hermione flinched, knowing what was coming but not knowing early enough to be able to warn Remus. She smacked him twice. Both time left a mark, almost like two eyes of red, crying blood on the right side of Remus' face.

Then Noelle turned back towards Hermione and smiled at her.

"They never told you, did they? None of them ever bothered to tell you why Sirius was so protective. No one ever bothered to tell you why they didn't want you and Remus together.

"Didn't you ever wonder? Don't you wonder even now why Sirius is so hell-bent on killing Peter the Betrayer?" Noelle laughed a real laugh and Hermione felt her eyes begin to water. The situation was getting desperate and Hermione didn't know how much longer she could stay strong. "Shame on you for keeping something like that from her."

"Sirius' sister was the one who turned first." Noelle still stared at Remus while she spoke to Hermione. "She and Remus were a 'couple' in our Forth Year. He loved her dearly, didn't you Remus? And then she, the perfect Arias Black, tried to kill Lily. We were all there in the greenhouse waiting for a detention because something had blown up and they had no idea who did it. Lily didn't even know my name back then. Did she know yours Remus? I don't think she even knew James."

Looking over at Remus, Hermione recognized in him the emotion that was flinging itself around in Hermione's stomach: hatred.

"She was a powerful little thirteen year old wasn't she? Grabbed Lily and tried to hit her over the head with something. Tried to do a Cruciatus on James when he tried to stop her but big brother jumped in the way. And then we all stunned her." Noelle's smile grew even bigger. "She nearly killed us all and Sirius blamed himself, it was his sister, and so he needed to stop all threats against the group from then on. It grew into a complex of sorts... Remus here never attached himself to anyone new after that. James became father. Lily came down from her lofty position to join us commoners. Valerie never trusted anyone again. Peter was still getting over losing Conrad and so he learned to hate the dark side. Isn't that ironic?"

Noelle ran back over to Hermione then and leaned in so close that their noses were touching.

"But, do you know what the funniest part is?" Noelle whispered. Hermione shook her head; too scared to open her mouth. "She was under the imperious curse and no one learned that until after they'd done irreparable damage to her. You see, you ought never to give Veritaserum to people under the imperious curse. It drives them crazy." Noelle giggled again behind her hand.

You're crazy, Hermione thought but did not dare say aloud.

"But it all makes sense now, doesn't it? Sirius' mistrust... Remus' anxiety... James' supremacy... Valerie's sarcasm... Peter's conflicting stories... But do you know what I saw that day with Arias? I saw what joining the Dark Side gives you. If a thirteen year old could do all that, what could I do?"

"You joined him then?" Hermione asked, her hands clenching into fists; Hermione was quickly discovering that the more emotional she became, the less the restraints could hold her. So she let herself feel every bit of the hatred that Noelle made her want to feel and her arms began to loosen a little more. She wanted hurt this woman, hurt this woman so badly that she couldn't get up again.

"No," Noelle shook her head slowly. "I was still too attached to Lily and her perfect world. I idolized her. She was what I wanted to be and she wasn't evil. She confused my thoughts and made me think that power wasn't the only thing to search for. It wasn't until years after graduation that Master set me straight. I begged for him to let me bring Peter into our circle but Master didn't want him. I had to convince him that Peter was worth it..." The map was blinking again, red, black, red, black, click, click, click. Everything was moving to a beat- it seemed even the throbbing in Hermione's cheek was pulsating to the same rhythm as the map and shoes.

"And here comes Potter."

Noelle smiled again and Hermione felt very, very sick. Hermione began screaming for them not to come, ignoring the pain in her throat hat came with every syllable she uttered, hoping against hope that Noelle had been lying about the room being soundproof.

"He brought Weasley. Quietus." Noelle put her forefinger up to her own lips as she crept towards the door. "Shhh. Mustn't be brave and make him run away. Remember, if he is anything like James or Lily he would come anyway..."

When the door opened, Hermione had to squint her eyes as the light from the corridor was far greater than the light in the room. Harry stepped into the doorway then. He stood with only his outline visible, tall and powerful.

He stood like a hero.

He stood like Lily.

He stood like James.

He stood like someone about to die.

Hermione knew that the spells had silenced and incapacitated her but she tried to move and yell and motion anyway. She tried to tell him to run. She tried to catch his eye, but he had obviously not seen her yet. Ron stepped up side him and they both seemed to be looking around a bit.

"Hermione?" Ron called out into the darkness. Hermione made to move towards them, she tried sending them mental warnings, and still they moved into the room just one step to many. The door slammed shut behind them. Ron looked wildly around as Harry fell into a fighting stance, wand in hand faster than Hermione could have imagined. He was ready for this, Hermione thought absurdly for a moment as she pulled so hard on her restraints that when she looked down she could see that her forearms were bleeding. She need to help him, she thought through the pain and she continued to pull out of the horrible, unseen bindings that kept her from her two best friends as surely as time had kept them apart for six whole months.

But she did not fight hard enough and Harry was not ready enough and Ron was not clever enough to stop what happened next. With Hermione's silent screams as the only other sound in the room, two spells were shot at Harry and Ron that sent them flying across the room, into the darkness on the other side, and bound there as surely as Hermione while their wands flew into the outstretched hand of Noelle. Now, Hermione finally vomited.

"That's the greatest hope against Master?" Noelle asked from Hermione's right side. "That is the Lily and James' heroic son? Pathetic." She put Ron and Harry's wands into her pocket and strode towards Hermione. Click. Click. Click.

Candles were suddenly floating everywhere in the room, illuminating every corner. Hermione's eyes took a moment to adjust as she tried to free herself of the smell, which was now stained onto her robes. Once her eyes got better, Hermione could see Harry and Ron struggling against their invisible bonds. Remus, with blood still streaking down his right cheek, was trying to do something behind his back. Hermione didn't know what she looked like but she imagined it must be pretty bad, after Ron caught sight of her he seemed to struggle twice as hard.

"Quite the little love triangle we have here isn't it? Remus on your left, Ron in front of you, and Harry James Potter trapped against his will."

"Who the hell are you?" Ron yelled. His voice made Hermione shake as she shot her eye over to Noelle, knowing what was coming and wanting to cry because of it.

"You ought to learn some manners," Noelle said cheerfully turning towards Ron. "Crucio."

He fell to the floor, the unforgivable curse undoing the magic of the imprisonment charm that kept Harry pinned against the wall. Ron's screams dug into Hermione soul and she wanted to scream and yell and fight and curse and so she pulled even harder, allowing herself to hate Noelle even more. Noelle didn't lift the curse for another ten seconds and by the time it came off Ron slumped to the floor, unconscious and broken.

Noelle looked at her watch. "Almost time for our group Portkey but we have enough time for one small introduction."

Noelle clicked across the floor once more. Standing up on her toes she came to Harry's shoulder, so she shot another spell at him, lowering him to her level and instantly taking a stumbling step backwards. With the extra anger this caused Hermione to feel, she was able to pull her hands completely away from each other and now work on pushing herself out of the chair. She needed out of this chair. Noelle could not be that close to Harry! She did not have the right! She had no right!

Hermione wanted to jump out of her chair and drag Noelle away from Harry. She betrayed Lily and James! She convinced Peter to switch sides! She was evil! STAY AWAY FROM HARRY. But Hermione could do nothing in her current state to protect Harry except weakly push against the hard, wooden chair and pretending like air didn't hurt as it passed through her body.

While Harry was obviously trapped against the wall, he wasn't immobilized. He proved this when Noelle tried to come back closer to him and touch his face and he jerked violently away. Hermione wanted to cheer him on but was silenced both by the curse that lay upon her throat and the look within Noelle's eyes. She was staring at Harry, no doubt noticing the same thing everyone else did: those emerald green eyes. Hermione wanted to laugh, thinking how scared Noelle must be, but the moment Hermione stopped feeling her hatred, she could move less. She had to concentrate. She had to be free. She had to save them all.

Harry's own eyes blazed as he looked to be concentrating very hard on setting this woman's head on fire. She'd hurt Ron. Harry would never forgive her.

"Who are you?" His words were like an ocean of regret to Hermione because it made her both sad and pained to know that he was not scared of Noelle because he'd been through worse, lived through being bound and threatened before. This was nothing new to him. Her hatred flared up again and now her feet could move, if only a little.

"I'm the person your mother thought would best protect you from the harsh world." Noelle smirked a little and Hermione wanted to jump out of her chair and smack her. Lily had trusted her. Did that mean nothing? How could she betray Lily and James and the rest of her friends so easily? How could she mock them? Hermione's calves were no longer bound. "I'm your godmother."

"You're lying."

"No I'm not. Why don't you ask Remus over there? He's silenced for the moment but can't you see the fear in his eyes? Fear of the truth? Can't you see the recognition in Hermione's face? Oh. That's right. She's incapacitated at the moment."

"If you let Hermione, Ron, and Remus go, I will stay without a fight."

"Very noble of you, that is. Your mother- no your mother wouldn't have done that for me. She would have done that for you and maybe Snape but no one else. Your father would have done that though. He would have done that for anyone- he was so careless with his life-" Hermione's whole left leg could move, but her couldn't get out of the chair, only move wildly about with her one leg and forearms.

"Let them go," Harry repeated. Noelle tilted her head a little to the left and looked him in the eye.

"That won't work for me. I don't want you. I wanted to meet you and everything but Master is the one who really wants you. I don't want to hurt you. I wanted to use you to hurt Lily but she's dead so it isn't worth it anymore, but Remus and Hermione here are something of another story. They both lied to me. A lot. And I hate people who lie Harry."

Her voice was dropping in and out of hissing. She sounded crazy. She looked crazy. That was why Hermione was shocked to discover she could still recognize something of the beauty she'd once held, the noble delicacy.

"What does Hermione have to do with you? Let her go. Let Ron go. I'll stay." Noelle laugh then. She laughed long and hard and nearly crumpled to the ground.

"You mean she hasn't told you? Hermione has said nothing to you?" Noelle laughed a little more. She took her wand and pointed it at Hermione, taking away the silencing and freezing charms. "Don't you think there's something you ought to tell your best friend Hermione? Something about -"

"Noelle don't do this," Hermione croaked out. Harry's eyes grew wide when he heard Hermione say her name. He looked like something inside himself had died. "Lily and James were good to you. Let their son go."

Noelle sent a curse at Hermione that knocked the air out of her as she felt like she had been punched in the stomach several times.

"You LIED to me Hermione. I want to hurt you for that. And I will. Do you think that Azkaban made me any less brilliant? If anything I am smarter than I was. Now I understand how to make people hurt the most. I needn't do anything to you. I just need to go for your friends." Noelle turned then and looked at Harry and Ron, then turned and gazed at Remus. She clicked over to him. Placing a hand on his right shoulder she turned to face Hermione.

"I never knew Remus was a werewolf. Peter had to tell me. Do you know how embarrassing it was to tell Master I knew nothing about that? Do you know how painful that was?" Noelle's entire body twitched from the mere memory and out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Harry make a similar shuddering motion.

"Do you want to know funny fact about werewolves? While they are very strong, their weakness is really very common." At this point Noelle let something drop from her right hand, the hand that wasn't touching Remus, it looked like a necklace- a silver necklace.

"You crazy -" Ron, who seemed to have woken up but not learned his lesson, muttered from the floor. Noelle silenced him with a single flick of her wand. Then she silenced Harry.

"The power of Master runs through me. I'm stronger now than I have ever been before." Noelle turned and summoned something from the corner of the dark room. It seemed to be a goblet. "I was going to wait until later to do this but since we're so ahead of schedule already why don't we make this a little more fun."

She muttered something that Hermione couldn't hear and began to pour to contents of the potion down Remus' throat. Hermione tried to jerk forward but only got so far before she was painfully brought back to the hard, wet chair. It was wet with her blood, Hermione saw glancing down, the blood that had run down from her arm and legs in the struggle to be free. She found she didn't care. All she cared about was Remus and what Noelle was doing to him.

"What are you doing? You're horrible at Potions! You could kill him!" She yelled it before she properly thought about what was coming out of her mouth. It had been twenty years since they'd shared a class and Hermione's voice still wasn't up to yelling. She felt like someone had hit her throat with a tire iron.

"Don't worry. I had a Potions master make this potion. I told him it was for an undercover mission. Told him I needed to look sixteen again." Hermione's head spun as she looked over at Remus who, having finished the potion, seemed to be being rearranged. His hair was changing color, his skin was softening, and Hermione's eyes were growing wider. In less than a minute he had changed completely.

Hermione heart swelled when she saw the finished product who was so clearly was the boy she'd fallen in love with, the boy she still loved. He looked exactly as he had the day she'd seen him in the Boxmora. She wanted to go to him, console him, take those stupid charms off him. She struggled a little more but her limbs were beginning to feel too weak with loss of blood for her to do anything but sit quite still.

"Hermione, I believe you know Remus. Remus, do you remember Hermione? The girl who left you?" Noelle went around behind him and moved to put the necklace around his neck.

"You never deserved Lily. She was better than you! More powerful! Prettier!" Hermione yelled, trying to distract Noelle from clasping that necklace on Remus and killing him. It worked. Briefly.

"Expelliarmus!" Noelle yelled. Hermione went flying backwards (chair and all). She hit the wall behind her, slammed into it with such force that her head rattled and vision darkened, but the most important thing was that the chair cracked. The chair split in two and somehow all of the spells that had held Hermione in place had broken, too.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione could see Harry struggling against his own binding and Ron trying to stand up. Noelle looked around madly and tried to stop both at once. That was why she was distracted when the most important thing of all happened: the blinked briefly red for ten second, then the door opened just a crack and closed again.

Hermione couldn't bring herself to think about what that meant. Honestly, she couldn't really think about anything other than staying awake and making sure all four of them away from Noelle quickly and preferably alive.

Somehow placing her hands against the wall, Hermione made an attempt to stand up, slipping briefly and only once on what she assumed was yet another pool of blood. Her head was throbbing, her sight was blurred, she couldn't think or understand anything clearly, and through all of that Hermione fought to keep her friends alive, no matter the cost to herself.

An orange light shooting across the room, caught Hermione's attention just long enough for her to see Sirius throwing off the invisibility cloak.

"NO!" Noelle shrieked and jumped out of the way of the light; now all of her attention was on the Sirius and so she forgot that while Harry and Remus were still restrained tightly, Hermione and Ron weren't magically bound at all. Hermione managed to move as quickly as she could towards Remus, stumbling and sliding all along the way, not knowing what she'd do once she got there. "THEY LIED TO ME! CRUCIO!"

It barely registered into Hermione's mind that Noelle had been aiming at her. She was so intent with her purpose that she didn't give it much thought. Then she felt herself being knocked over and heard that horrible screaming again. Hermione turned and saw Ron: Ron withering on the ground in pain, Ron crying out, Ron taking that curse for her.

Harry screamed loudly then, but Hermione didn't look over; she was crawling towards Ron, not knowing how she was planning to help him. Then the curse ended and so did his screams, though they echoed in the back of Hermione's brain for a long time. She looked up, trying to see what had stopped Noelle's curse. Hermione watched as Noelle raised her wand towards Harry, who was charging towards her, and said something that should have been a curse, but Harry was too fast. Before the words were even out of her mouth, Harry was knocking her over. It was as though he'd completely forgotten he was a wizard, but that did not matter. What mattered was that Noelle was no longer upright. Hermione sunk to the floor, dizzy and confused.

What happened to Sirius?

Were her parents dead?

Why was her hair so sticky?

Where was all this darkness coming from?

~*~*~

In the days that followed Noelle's horrific attack, Hermione Granger lay quietly in the second hospital bed on the left. She had spoken only once in her sleep, muttering something like, "I want to go home. I want to go home." She'd lost a lot of blood after smashing against the wall and it was a miracle that she had even been able to stand up after that.

Harry Potter occupied the bed next to hers, less messed up but even quieter than his comatose friend. He spent long hours staring at the wall and at the scar on his left arm. When he'd tackled Noelle, his arm had caught on something that he couldn't even remember.

Ron Weasley spent most of his three-day stay in bed, nursing his headache and trying to forget the pain that came with the curse that, in his Fourth Year, he'd thought was so funny for Professor Moody to perform on a spider.

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were not in the Hospital Wing. Instead the pair were kept and looked after in the Headmaster's quarters where there was more quiet and less attention. Both men recovered quickly, having been through worse in the past, and wished to help in any way they could.

Noelle Lestrange was the first person that Harry Potter ever killed, though it was unintentional and he never learned about it.

It took a little less than a week for all of them to be physically healed and even then Harry, Ron, and Hermione did not speak to one another, though they all stayed in the Hospital Wing together.

The guilt Hermione felt was overwhelming. She'd let them down, betrayed them, lied to them. She didn't deserve to be their best friend. Harry and Ron, though Hermione did not know it yet, both felt that same guilt. They blamed themselves for her suffering, telling themselves they should have noticed her absence sooner, brought the headmaster, asked a professor for help, or done any of a thousand other things that ran through their minds.

On her fifth day in the hospital, when Hermione was still working up the courage to sit up in her hospital bed, she saw the silhouette of a man sitting on Harry's bed. She quit trying to sit up, but it didn't matter because he came over anyway.

"I can't stay," Sirius said. He sounded like he'd been crying, but that couldn't be right because Hermione would have heard him. Peeking an eye open, Hermione saw that his eyes were indeed rimmed with red. Of course! They were in a magical school, the curtains had probably been sound proofed. "I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry for not trusting you and that when Dumbledore asked me to round up the old crowd last year, you were on my list of people to contact, and I trust you as much as I trust Remus."

A lump formed in Hermione throat as Sirius turned and walked away. She would have stopped him if she thought it was appropriate, but it wasn't. She hadn't really ever known Sirius. He'd been a distrustful friend of friend. The fact that he grouped her with the people who had worked so diligently to fight Voldemort was astonishing to her.

"You have guests Hermione," Madam Pomfrey's voice called out. Hermione quickly worked to dry her tears and sit up in bed, hoping to look less like a lazy git but she needn't have done that because in the excitement she felt when her visitors walked in, Hermione forgot about manners and tried to reach out to them, getting a huge headache as a result, because her parents were nervously poking their head around the curtains that surrounded her bed.

"You're alive," Hermione cried, wishing she had the strength to throw her arms around them both. It didn't matter. They both leaned down to envelope her in a hug. She cried for a long time, not just because they were alive but also because it was the first time in months that she had seen her parents, probably the only two people in the entire world whose jobs were, first and foremost, to take care of her. Hermione cried out of relief.

~*~*~

Mr. And Mrs. Granger stayed as long as possible and spent all of their time with their only daughter, trying and failing to understand what she had been through. The relief that had been so acute when she had first seen them was slowly wearing off as time went on. They really couldn't protect her from this.

Dumbledore called Hermione into his office the morning after her parents left but when she arrived, Hermione found herself in a room not with an old, trusted headmaster, but rather with Remus Lupin.

"Hermione," her old professor said as she walked into the room, causing her to freeze immediately. They were positioned on opposite sides of the room with plenty of space between them and Hermione said the first thing that came into her head.

"I'm so sorry," she said, shaking her head from side to side, twisting her hands in her lap.

"It wasn't your fault," he replied, tilting his head to the side in a way that reminded Hermione of Noelle, and made her look away.

"I gave her the password."

"She could have found out another way. Sirius did," Remus replied reasonably, facing her but not making a move to close the distance between them.

"She almost killed you."

"She almost killed you." Remus held out a hand for emphasis but Hermione did not even want to think about that.

"I just- I guess never thought it was true, all the things Valerie said about her," Hermione said as she felt her knees begin to shake. She reached out a hand and steadied herself with the wall. Remus Lupin nodded his head as his eyes slid out of focus. Hermione eyes watered and Remus walked forward finally and handed her a handkerchief.

"There will be a time for tears Hermione, but not yet and definitely not for her."

"Was everything she said true?"

"About Sirius' sister. Yes." Hermione felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. "But that woman was not our friend. She was something different, an evil creature created by thirteen years of life with Dementors."

"She said you loved me. Was that true as well?" Hermione's dark brown eyes met his and in their connection, the pain was almost tangible.

"Yes."

"I loved you so much that it hurt," Hermione confessed, pushed by the recent events to say everything that was on her mind. "It still hurts. I still want to be with you, age restrictions be damned!"

"But you left and that's the end of it," Remus replied. Even to Hermione, whose emotions were somewhat clogging her hearing, it sounded rehearsed. It was too easy to say, too fast in coming.

"But I didn't want to. I wanted to stay. I planned to stay. I was going to grow old and love you and save Harry as an adult. I was going to stay with you." Hermione stopped her speech quickly, knowing that if she continued she would begin to cry and that was the last thing that she wanted.

"Whether or not it was intentional does not matter, you are here now and that is what matters. I am no longer sixteen and you know that," Remus said in her quiet manner that gave no indication of his feelings but Hermione refused to believe that he felt nothing for her. Nothing?

"But that doesn't matter! Age is nothing!"

It had taken her a long while to realize that the man in front of her was still the boy she'd loved but now she knew it. She figured it out the moment she'd seen Noelle pouring that vile potion down his throat and seen the way he'd changed back into Remus- her Remus. They were one and the same. He could not throw it away like this.

"Age might be nothing but the twenty two years I spent between now and sixteen are real and they changed me."

"I lost them all too!" Hermione yelled, trying to connect to him, trying not to give up hope, but even as she said it, she knew she was lying. She and Remus had not lost the same amount. She'd lost friends. He'd lost brothers.

"Ron loves you.

Remus watched, still immobile in his chair as Hermione stumbled towards him. 'No!' he thought, 'Leave! Run away!' But neither his face nor his voice was able to convey his feelings and so she kept coming towards him, slowly so slowly.

Sirius was fighting Noelle, distracting her, but it did not last long. She shot a spell at Harry and Sirius, in his concern, was momentarily distracted. It was enough time for Noelle to fire one last hex at him. Sirius fell to the ground with a resounding thud. Remus turned and saw Hermione still struggling over to him and Harry's arms were covered in the blood that he lost while pulling against his restraints and Ron was getting up and moving towards Hermione. Even Sirius was slowly making progress. Only Remus was left still useless and bound. Guilt swelled up in Remus' stomach. He was older. He was stronger. He should be protecting them. What would James have thought of Remus' pathetic showing in saving his son? It burned his heart.

"THEY LIED TO ME! CRUCIO!"

To Remus, everything looked like it happened in slow motion, the light exploding out of Noelle's wand, the time it took to move the ten metres between the older woman and short woman, and then, just as Remus' heart was breaking for the girl who had been his first love, Ron shoved Hermione to the ground and took the curse himself. Hermione's head hit the hard, rock floor and it took her a while to start moving again, but this time she wasn't slowly stumbling towards Remus, she was crawling in the direction of Ron.

A blur of motion caught Remus, and Noelle's, eye. They turned together, Noelle breaking off the Unforgivable Curse, to see Harry charging at Noelle. She barely had time to raise her wand before he powered into her, knocking her into a sidewall. Sirius was there a moment later, picking his half-conscious godson off the woman who had laughed so easily when remembering the death of James and Lily Potter.

Harry tried to go to his two best friends, but fell short, almost crumpling to the ground. He'd lost a lot of blood and it looked like he'd also hit his head during that tackle. Sirius caught him just before he hit the ground, though that was a lot like the blind leading the blind. Both were so beat up that Remus was shocked Sirius had the strength to both carry Harry and put Noelle onto a stretcher, taking all of the wands she's taken and putting them side his own pocket.

Leaving Noelle's lifeless body floating there, he came to take care of Remus. Harry wobbled beside him while Sirius worked to take off the complex curses that held his werewolf friend Remus watched as Ron, who had managed to crawl over despite the pain that he must still be feeling as an after affect of that horrendous curse, kneel over Hermione, weeping. He took her hand in his and started shaking it, asking her to wake up, please wake up.

'Come on Hermione! Come on! Wake up! Don't do this to me! Come on! I woke up on the Giant Chess set and you have to do the same now. Please? Please?! I woke tease you about Krum anymore. I woke. Just get up. I love you, okay? I love you a lot and I have for a while so please wake up so I can tell you that. I love you. I was jealous of Krum. I love you. Please don't-" Ron stumbled over the next word and Remus knew what he was going to say but was grateful he didn't.

The spells dissolved around Remus and Sirius gave him his wand almost immediately. Remus quickly went to support Sirius and Harry, casting spells to stop their bleeding. Then he went over to Ron and Hermione, offering to create a stretcher, Ron stubbornly refused. He picked Hermione up himself, even though he was so weak that it made him shake, and did not rest or even stop for a breath until the group had finally reached the Hospital Wing. Then he put Hermione down on the bed, kissed her brow, and said one final time, "I love you," before he himself fell into unconsciousness.

"But- We're- We're- " Hermione muttered, hearing the end of the tail. "We're friends. His loves me like a friend."

"When he looks at you he does not see his old friend. He looks like James did in Fifth Year when he was looking at Lily." Hermione shook her head. This was too much to handle. Remus was the one she loved and wanted to be with. Remus was her first love, she wouldn't let a little thing like time get in her way. But then why was she now wondering about Ron? What had he meant? What does this mean?

"I still love you," she spat out, trying to focus on the present instead of the story Remus had just told.

"I have moved on Hermione," Remus said with an edge to his voice that was probably a mix of anger and sadness. Hermione flinched and moved back a step, feeling like she'd been slapped.

She hadn't even considered the fact that he'd probably found someone else, probably another werewolf, whom he'd fallen in love with. Remus had probably forgotten her years ago.

"You need to tell Harry the truth, the whole entire truth about what happened and who you were with. Everything."

"Where would I even begin?" she choked out over the ever-increasing, painful lump in her throat.

"Start with Lily- everything else started with her."

"Snape knew her best," Hermione replied, still trying to grasp the idea that she would never get to hold Remus' hand again or kiss him underneath the stars or have him drag her blindly through the castle believing he would lead her right.

"They have already spoken, but Severus kindly avoided mentioning any part you may have had in Lily's life. Go to Harry and tell him what you remember about her."

"What would I say?"

"I could give you my eulogy." A sharp pang struck Hermione in the heart as she realized what it must have been like from Remus to have gone through this alone. She didn't want him to be alone anymore. But he's moved on.

Remus pulled a piece of parchment out of the air and handed it to Hermione.

"If you want James' just owl me." He turned and left as Hermione sat down in the large chair that lay under Fawkes' perch. His speech hurt her heart but she knew she had needed to hear it. She needed to know that he longer cared in order for her to move on, but it still made her want to cry. She remembered seeing Remus, the sixteen year-old version of him, only just a short while ago and now he'd aged nearly two decades and walked out of her life anyway. She loved him and he left. He didn't care. He had moved on.

He didn't care.

~*~*~

Destined to save the world with a love she did not know she could possess, Lily Evans Potter was beautiful and brilliant in everything that she did. I remember the first time I met her. All of the First Years were waiting in line to be sorted, trying to guess what would be in the big room next door. Lily was shaking like a leaf up until the very moment that the hat sang. Then she shrieked and shook more. Her name was called third and she slowly made her way up to the stool, sat down, and gently put the hat on. I don't know what that hat said to her but she walked out from under it a new person. I never once saw her shake after that, except maybe o her wedding day and the day she told me how much she loved Harry-

There were more words but they could not be read through the tearstains that covered them.

~*~*~

Hermione went first to Ron because she knew that he was less involved in this than Harry. They sat together in an empty classroom, talking for hours and he responded almost completely opposite of how she expected: he was calm and understanding. He listened intently and did not question her until she was done with the story, and then he only asked questions for clarification.

"Are you all right?" he asked her after the full story was out.

"What?"

"That was a lot to go through. Are you all right with it all?"

"You aren't mad at me? You don't want me to-" but Hermione didn't finish her question. She didn't get to. Ron was crushing her in a bear hug.

"Why would I ever be angry with you? It wasn't your fault." His reassurances almost sent Hermione over the emotional edge; she was about to cry again.

"I didn't stop anything from happening. I could have stopped Peter and I didn't." She thought back to her conversation with Snape and the accusations he had thrown about.

"Peter chose his own path. You could never have controlled him or her," Ron said, avoiding mentioning Noelle's name for fear that he would once more remember those agonizing moments she'd caused him to feel.

"I could have though. I could have told everyone. It's my fault she knew the password. It's my fault she took me and that your life was in danger."

"It was Noelle's fault we were all in danger." He shuddered as he said her name. "You are my best friend and I completely and utterly trust you. You did everything you could and even if you didn't, you probably had good reason not to. Don't doubt yourself." He hugged her again, but this time in a softer, friendlier way and Hermione really did start crying.

"Harry won't blame you either. He's blaming himself right now, saying he should have been able to break free earlier, that he should have noticed you were gone earlier, or he should have tried harder to protect you," Ron said, his voice shaking slightly. Hermione didn't know if they were talking about Harry anymore.

"You saved my life. Pomfrey said one more curse would have-" Ron shuddered in her arms and she did not finish the sentence.

"I will always be here for you," he whispered in her ear before turning and leaving her and the conversation behind.

Hermione wondered afterward, as she remembered the way he looked so carefully at her and asked all of the questions she hadn't expected him to ask, when exactly Ron had grown up. She'd been so involved with herself and her own problems that she had not considered that her best friend had changed right under her nose, but now she was suddenly faced with the change and it was so obvious it took her breath away. Had Noelle, by kidnapping and hurting him, forced him to grow up? Had the shock of the Third Task last year, and the disappearance of Harry, made him this way? Was he trying to be a better friend to Harry?

Or, as Remus suggested, was he changing because he loved Hermione?

Hermione could not even begin to guess the reasons for the sudden maturity in Ron, but often found herself remembering those hugs he had ever given her after she'd told him about the time-traveling adventure. It was a new and different thing for him to do and Hermione found herself more grateful for his affection than she thought she should be.

~*~*~

When Hermione went to Harry, asking to speak with him alone, she was terrified. Ron had taken it all so well, would Harry? Would he feel like she had stolen his history? Would he feel like she had somehow cheated him out of his own memories? Would he forgive her for knowing those people whom he, and only he, really had a right to get to know?

Harry sat down with her on the Gryffindor Quidditch stands and waited for her to begin with his hands folded between his knees. He stared forward into space and said nothing as she sat across from him, both hoping and dreading that their eyes would meet.

Hermione had chosen this spot because she thought this would be the best way to introduce him to the world she'd left behind. She wasn't sure how to start except to take Remus' advise. First she handed Harry the carefully wrapped package of pictures she had gotten from Valerie. Inside were each of the pictures of Lily and James.

Watching Harry slowly untie the bow that was wrapped around them made Hermione think of Lily and for the first time in a long time, Hermione didn't push the thought away. It made her smile to watch his eyes as he memorized the faces in each of the photos. After a while he looked up, caught her eye, and she began to tell him the story of Lily Evans, Noelle Lestrange, Valerie Cathaway, Peter Pettigrew, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin. It was a story that lived in her heart and was burned deep into her soul. Taking it out and placing it before Harry was the hardest and most wonderful thing that Hermione had ever done.