FicWad

There were still so many questions that bounced around James’ head, even as they walked back to the Common Room later that evening. None of them were particularly hungry. Not even Peter, who was always hungry. And since they'd skipped afternoon classes, the only thing for them to do was retreat to their dormitory. James glanced at Hermione, and she had her arms wrapped around herself. She still looked ill, and he wanted to move and pull her closer to him. He wanted to look after her, and he didn’t know why. It felt like some innate urge to protect her, against his better judgement, against all odds.
She hadn’t told them everything. They still didn’t know how or why she travelled back in time; why she fell from the Gryffindor ceiling, of all places. They didn’t know what happened to their future self, or how she knew them. Or what she planned to do now.
All they knew was that Hermione Granger hadn’t been born yet, and she was already the most exceptional bundle of nerves and sparks the world had ever seen.
They reached the Fat Lady, where Remus muttered the password, and they all stepped inside. Here, it was noisy and brash, and everything Gryffindor house was meant to be. Hermione felt a strange sense of serenity wash over her at it's familiar sight.
Lily jumped up from her seat as soon as she saw her and ran over.
"Hermione!" She pulled her into a hug.
Surprised, Hermione let herself melt into the smaller girl's embrace. It was warm but firm, gentle but secure and she found herself wanting to stay there. Lily let go, however, and said, concerned, "How are you feeling?"
"Oh. I'm okay now. Thank you. I just needed some rest," she smiled faintly.
"Are you sure? You don't need to see Madam Pomfrey-?"
Hermione snorted. "I definitely don't need to see Madam Pomfrey! I could have a cough and she wouldn't let me leave for a whole week!"
Sirius appeared beside her, his hand rubbing the top of her arm. "Sorry, Evans, but I'm gonna have to steal Miss Granger here. We're going to bed."
Lily's lips parted, then closed, as if she was deliberating saying something. She must've come to a decision for she said, "There's a spare bed in the girls dormitory. I mean, only if you want to, of course- you can move in with us."
Mary, who was eavesdropping all the way from the sofa, whooped. She grinned toothily, "That'd be ace! You totally should, Hermione!"
"Yeah, those boys can get irritating after a while. I can't spend two minutes with them, never mind two nights," Marlene added, but she winked to let them know she was joking.
Hermione let herself smile and she nodded. "That would be nice, thank you."
Lily beamed. "Don't worry about it! I'll show you which bed is yours, if you want?"
From besides her, Sirius looked wounded. "Kitten? How could you do this to us, to me? I thought we had something special..."
He removed his hand from her, and raised it to his forehead where he looked as though he might swoon. Remus raised an eyebrow in slight interest. "What's this?"
Sirius whipped around to face him. "Our Hermione is fleeing the nest!"
Her chest felt extremely light as she scoffed; despite having shed the light on her true origins, the boys were still as goofy and stupid as they had been before. She didn't know why this reassured her, but she supposed it was warming to know that some things never changed.
Peter piped up, "Who's fleeing the nest?"
"Oh, honestly! I'm not fleeing the nest-"
"Hermione?" James asked incredulously. "Hermione's fleeing the nest! Why ever would she leave us?"
Sirius waggled his finger at James. "It's your Lily! She's brainwashed Hermione just like she brainwashed you! I swear, she's conspiring against me!"
Lily's lips curled at the corners, a deep blush painting her cheeks at the mention of her being James' Lily. She patted his arm lovingly. "Oh Sirius, I could never conspire against you..." Then, she added, "You're too easy. I like a bit of a challenge."
Hermione let herself laugh, and Lily said to her, "I'll meet you in our room?"
"Okay."
She disappeared. Then Hermione turned to the boys. They were stood in a row. Peter, with his large ears and scrawny frame with a uniform too big and a presence too small. James, tall and lanky; with his wonky glasses and wonky hair, but who was irrevocably home. Sirius, tall but not quite as tall as James or Remus; a diamond in the rough, or maybe the rough of a diamond- Hermione wasn't sure, but he was a knife with soft edges to her. And finally, Remus, the tallest of them all, shabby and scruffy but real and there. Even though he was smudged, he seemed so distinct.
They just stared at each other. The mood grew solemn.
"Well, I'm fleeing the nest," Hermione said jokingly, but the humour was weak.
Sirius cracked a smile.
"Thank you," she said. She was serious. Her eyes bore into each of them. "For everything."
And she was so grateful, that words could not express how she felt. These boys had taken her in and cared for her, even though she was broken and battered, perhaps beyond repair. They had listened and anchored her down to the world. They had saved her.
Just as she turned to go, Remus reached out and took her hand. His eyes were amber and light and bright, and he stared into her, and he meant every word. “Hermione… You know that we’ve got you. It doesn’t matter that we were never supposed to have you, or that you’re supposed to be dead, because you’re here and you’re alive, and we’ve got you. Okay? I promise.”
Hermione looked at him, before she flung her arms around his neck and pulled him close, stifling the urge to cry again. Although initially taken aback, Remus folded his arms around her, nuzzling his nose into her hair. He closed his eyes.
When she eventually pulled back, she said again, looking at each of them, "Thank you."

Sirius just smiled. "Goodnight Kitten. Sweet dreams."


****


When Hermione woke up the next morning, she was blissfully aware that she had slept well. Having her own bed with the knowledge that it was hers, did not escape her. The sunlight streamed in through the slit in the curtains, and soft snores and deep breaths reached her ears, telling her the other girls were still asleep.
She felt restless. Whilst she was refreshed and well-rested, now, she could not stay still. She needed to move, to go somewhere else, for lying in bed any longer would drive her insane.
Hermione peeled back the covers, gently slipping her feet onto the floor. Lily had let Hermione borrow some of her old pyjamas that she had claimed she didn’t need anymore, and so she was wearing a night dress, with ruffled shoulders, long sleeves that were cuffed at the wrist with a button, and a white frilly neckline. The 1970’s fashion was different, but strangely comfortable and Hermione found she rather liked it.
She had kept her socks on, and she padded across the dormitory, slipping out of the room and down the stairs. The Common Room was quiet. The fire still crackled in the hearth, and nobody else appeared to be awake.
She moved to sit on the settee, when she jumped at the sight of a wide awake James Potter.
“James?”
He was just in the middle of raising a cup of what looked to be tea to his lips, when his eyebrows raised and he looked at her.
“Hermione.”
His hair was all over the place, glasses crooked on his nose; he looked as though he had been awake a while. Hermione smiled softly, sitting on his right.
“Did I wake you?” James asked, and his arm flopped to lie behind her. Her mouth gaped in a long yawn.
“No,” she said. “I just woke up and felt like coming to sit down here.”
He watched her as she ran her hand through the wild tangles of her hair. “Did you sleep well?”
“Oh yes,” she replied, letting her head tip back and she beamed at him. Her curls tickled his fingers. “Incredibly, actually.”
James looked wounded. “More so than when you slept with us?”
Her eyes widened and she let out a loud laugh at the innuendo, reaching up to cover her mouth and silence her mirth. Her amusement simply doubled however when he seemed to realise what he had said, and his ears turned a dark pink.
He mumbled, “Oh… I didn’t mean that.”
Still amused, she said jokingly, “I gathered.”
“I just meant- Well… It doesn’t matter. That’s good, though. As long as you slept well, and didn’t have any-”
He broke off.
Nightmares.
Although he didn’t say it, the word echoed between them. She had told them a lot yesterday, and she felt weird when she remembered that she didn’t ask them not to act any differently around her. She was still Hermione.
"Please don't act like I'm going to break," Hermione said in a small voice. "I'm stronger than this. I swear."
James' hand, on the end of his arm which had been casually thrown across the top of the cushion she was leaning on, stretched up to caress her shoulder. He smiled sideways at her. "I know."
"I just," Hermione licked her lips. "I don't want you feeling like you have to tread on broken glass around me."
“Hermione,” he said, exasperated. “We treated you like that before we even knew of the horrors you’ve been through!”
She swallowed. “I can handle it though, I promise.”
“I know you can. We just care about you. Regardless of your past… or future, I guess- we still care about you.”
Hermione smiled at him, and he motioned for her to come closer. She shuffled next to him, relaxing into the thin yet undeniably warm mould of his body. It was always James that seemed to fill her crevices. He always held her, and warmed her up, and knew how to make her feel complete, even when she was crumbling.
“I was more…” she said quietly, feeling the need to explain. “When I was whole, when I was happy… I was more than this. I just want you to know that.”
James was quiet. His chest reverberated through her. All he said was, “You’re enough now.”
They stayed like that for a while, relishing the content peacefulness of the early morning. James gave her the rest of his tea, which was strong and far too sweet for her liking, but she drank it anyway. They remained in this position for a while, occasionally talking about unimportant things that they could throw away as soon as the castle awoke from its slumber.
The portrait hole swung open suddenly. And Remus stepped through.
He looked tired. His robe was fastened up over the top of his pyjamas, and he didn’t seem fully aware of his surroundings.
“Moony,” James said, head perked to look at his friend.
Remus’ eyes fell on James and Hermione on the sofa, and he didn’t properly see them. Blinking a few times, his eyes focused. “Oh. Hello.”
“What are you doing up?” James asked, and the concern he felt barely leaked into his voice. It was something he’d had to learn to conceal; with Remus, any hint of concern for his wellbeing was, to him, an insult to his strength. Although he’d never worded it as such, James knew that Remus disliked being taken care of, disliked being more of a burden than he already was.
James thought that Remus could never be a burden, but it wasn’t an opinion reciprocated, so he kept quiet.
“Sleepwalking,” Remus replied dryly, getting close enough so he could collapse in the armchair by the fireplace.
Hermione smiled, and she remembered the miniature Hogwarts, made up of clutter and rubbish. The scene of him sat, cross legged, on the floor of a room bathed in fairy lights, precisely adding intricate details to the model, flitted across her mind. It never ceased to amaze her how Remus had turned something useless and disposable into something valuable.
And yet, there was something ironic to it; how Remus could see the beauty in everything but himself.
“What are you two doing up?” He asked, laying back and looking at them through half-closed lids.
“Early bird,” James said in way of reply.
Hermione shrugged. “I slept well… Just couldn’t sleep any longer.”
Remus kept his eyes on her. It was weird for them to be acting as though nothing had happened. Now he thought about it, it was even weirder that they weren’t automatically turning every conversation into one about the future. He didn’t know whether or not he could ever ask her what became of Sirius, Peter… and himself, despite the burning curiosity inside of him.
But there was also that twinge of trepidation. What if he didn’t like what he heard? What if the truth was more painful than anything else in the world?
The Common Room progressively got busier and louder, and it was when Lily sauntered over to them, hair mussed up and still half-asleep, did they actually bother moving. James sat up a little straighter, his eyes strictly glued to her face and not her bare legs. His Adam’s apple bobbed once.
“Hermione, I thought I’d find you out here!” She yawned as she got closer, rubbing her face. A lazy smile curled her lips. “Good morning, Remus, James.”
“Hi Lily,” Hermione beamed. Remus lifted a hand in greeting.
James craned his neck to look at her, as she leaned on the back of the sofa. “How did you sleep?”
Momentarily taken aback by his softness, Lily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled, “Good. And you?”
“Amazing,” he grinned.
Her cheeks turned a light pink. She diverted her attention to Hermione quickly. “I have some uniform you can borrow as well, if you want? Until Professor Dumbledore lets you get your own?”
Hermione nodded. “That would be lovely, thank you.”
“I could also brush your hair for you,” Lily continued, running her fingers through the soft tangles of Hermione’s hair. She must have seen the look of horror on her face as she added, laughing, “I promise not to hurt you! I’ll be gentle.”
She dropped her chin to rest on top of Hermione’s head.
Hermione lifted her hand up, sighing dramatically, and Lily let out a happy noise, pulling her up. She only had time to mime a ‘Help me’ to the boys, who stifled their snorts, before she was dragged up the stairs to their dormitory.
“Hermione!” Marlene announced as soon as the blonde caught sight of her. She smirked. “And here, we thought you’d run away!” She threw a pillow at Mary’s face. “Told you you snored.”
Mary scowled, and continued getting dressed. Lily made a beeline for her chest, flipping it open and retrieving some uniform for both herself and Hermione.
Marlene, fully clothed, strode over to the bathroom, making sure to push Mary hard enough that the other girl fell onto her bed, with her jumper stuck over her head. A muffled sound of indignation could be heard and Hermione tipped her head back and laughed loudly.
Shooting her a look of appreciation, Marlene disappeared into the bathroom to do her makeup.
Hermione dressed hastily, feeling Lily almost bounce with excitement beside her. As soon as her tie was complete, she was forced to sit on the edge of the bed, with the bubbling redhead sitting behind her.
It was surprisingly relaxing, and Lily was gentle, just as she promised. Her brush barely pulled Hermione’s knots at all, and she heard Lily humming under her breath. Her eyes fluttered to a close, and it was almost massaging.
Once she’d finished, she put the brush down and her nimble fingers made quick work of the now smooth hair, plaiting it into a loose fishtail.
Lily then jumped off the bed, kneeling in front of her, and started applying small amounts of foundation and mascara and whatever else she seemed to have in her top drawer of the bedside cabinet. Her tongue kept flicking out to rest between her lips and a small crease appeared between her eyebrows.
Hermione, despite her initial reservations, found she rather enjoyed this attention. With Harry and Ron, there was really no time to talk about makeup, and practise different hairstyles. Although Ginny had tried (quite valiantly), Hermione had been too busy to allow herself to succumb to such feminine wishes.
But now she felt deliriously happy.
Marlene came out of the bathroom, lips pink, eyes dark, and her mouth dropped when she caught sight of Hermione. Her manicured hands cupped her face. “Oh! You look beautiful!”
Hermione blushed, but her smile gave her away. Mary’s head shot to look, and her wide mouth split into a grin.
Lily picked up her wand, muttering a spell and waved it in front of her. A small, handheld mirror appeared, and she sat beside Hermione, holding it up for her to see. She rested her head on her shoulder.
“There! I told you I’d be gentle!”
Hermione touched her cheek hesitantly. She looked so different, and yet the same. Her eyelashes were longer, and her eyelids shimmered a faint gold. Her cheeks were naturally blushed, and flawless. A few loose curls escaped from the braid, framing her face.
“How did you do that?”
Lily looked puzzled. “How did I do what?”
“Make me look presentable,” Hermione laughed.
Lily shook her head and said, “Hermione, you already looked presentable. Now go out there and show the world Hermione Granger!"
And even as Lily hopped off to do her own hair, and Mary began singing a surprisingly in-tune version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (with Marlene screeching backups), the words resonated with her, playing on a loop.
Go out there and show the world Hermione Granger!
Hermione felt a swell of determination rise inside of her. That was exactly what she was going to do...
And she hoped the world was ready for it.