Chapter Eight

Captain Obvious

"I thought it was decided you're staying put," Sirius said in a conspiratorial whisper as he disinterestedly examined the spine of a random book before sliding the volume back into place upon the shelf.

Hermione's brows pinched upward ever so slightly though she didn't lift her gaze from the book open in her hands. "Technically what we decided was that it's best if I don't try to go home until we're sure there's a way for me to accomplish that without undoing what's happened here." It had also been decided that rather than discussing timelines in matters of future, past, or present, they would simply refer to them as here, there, or Hermione's home, so that should anyone overhear their chats, her unwilling time-meddling would not be easily deduced.

Remus chimed in from behind Sirius, his own nose stuck in a book, "I was quite cautious . . . and, for want of a more fitting descriptive, angry—"

"I'll say," the witch and animagus interrupted together, much to the werewolf's chagrin.

"Shut up, you two." Though even as he admonished them, Remus was relieved that after how terribly this morning had gone they were all getting on well again. "As I was saying, when we first discussed the issue last night, we were all rattled and lacking for sleep. Now that I've had time to think about it, she's not wrong. There might be a way and were we to simply not even try to find it, that wouldn't be very fair to her."

Sirius looked from one bookworm to the other and back. "But won't this all just get her hopes up if it turns out there's nothing to find?"

Remus pursed his lips and nodded. "Pretty sure she'd prefer not being spoken of as though she's not standing right there."

Jet brows shooting upward, Sirius winced. Sure, Remus had started it, but it seemed a bizarre rule of the Wizarding world—as though they'd all had a meeting without him and came to an agreement on the matter—that Remus was rarely blamed for things, but Sirius Black? Oh, he had trouble written all over him, so of course he could be the one taken to task for whatever went wrong.

Not that Sirius minded terribly being regarded as having trouble written all over him, he knew perfectly well the sort of thoughts his looks made other people have, but in instances where he'd really done nothing wrong, it felt a bit unfair.

He turned his attention to Hermione only to find her staring at the pages before her. She wasn't reading; the look in her eyes was distant, unseeing.

Sirius nudged Remus' ribs with his elbow. The werewolf snapped his gaze toward the other man before also turning to look at the witch.

"Hermione?" Sirius started, his voice gentle as he took a step closer to her. "You okay?"

"Hmm?" She lifted her face, sniffling in spite of herself. Here she bloody went again. "Sorry, sorry." She closed the book and held it out toward Remus. "This one might be of some use."

When Remus only watched the book in her hand for a moment, Sirius hissed under his breath. Snatching it from her grip, he pressed the book against Remus' chest until the werewolf reflexively grabbed hold of it. Fast it was becoming painfully obvious that neither of them knew what to do about a crying female any more than they'd known last night.

"Do you not want to do this?" Sirius ventured, his usually confident voice uncertain.

Her mouth pulled into an angry little pout as she considered how to explain. "It's complicated. You're right, of course, it could crush me if we try and find nothing, it should be easier to simply accept that I probably don't have a way home. But it's not easier, not really, because it makes me think about everything I've been forced to leave behind."

She looked from one to the other and back. They both appeared somber on her behalf. "I'm lucky I found you two as quick as I did. Found something, anything familiar to me. Can you imagine me just bumbling around on my own, messing things up for people?"

Biting his lip, Remus snickered while he shook his head. His mirth evaporated in a blink and he said in a soft voice, "Maybe that wasn't luck."

Her brow furrowed and she gave herself a little shake. "What do you mean?"

"Well . . . ." He shrugged, hefting the books he'd collected and the one she'd selected under one arm. "Hogsmeade isn't exactly one small spot on the ground, is it? It's a village. Apparition isn't exact unless you're aiming for a specific point. Were you?"

Spine stiffening a little, she shook her head. "No. I was in a bit of a panic, actually, I just wanted to get here. I wasn't thinking exact anything. I just wanted to get someplace that felt familiar and it was the first thing that came to mind."

Remus nodded. "Yet you just so happened to pop up right there, where we were standing."

"You're suggesting the magic sensed we were familiar to her?" Sirius pinched between his brows and snapped shut his eyes. "God, I hate thinking this much so early in the morning."

Distracted from her woes by Sirius' nonsense, she frowned. "Does he always downplay his own intelligence like this?"

"You've no idea," Remus answered with a sigh. "I'm guessing you're used to him not bothering with the ploy."

"Pretty much."

"Oi," the dark-haired man cut in with a frown. "I am standing right here."

Hermione granted him a withering stare. "Yeah? Well maybe now you'll know better than treat yourself like you're an idiot around us."

His shoulders drooped. "I know I'm not an idiot. But it's fair to say I'm not like the two of you."

She tried to think of what word to supply that would tread the line between the more studious nature of her and Remus and the savvier, fluid intelligence Sirius displayed. "Um, you mean bookish?"

Pivoting to face her, Remus grinned. He'd evidently been thinking along the same lines. "Bookish! Yes, perfect. Bookish he is not!"

Sirius expression soured over the moment of camaraderie that most distinctly did not include him. "You two finished being all chummy or should I wait outside the shop?"

Hermione let out a scoffing laugh. Looping one of her arms around his elbow she rested her head on his shoulder. "Oh, please. We all needed a bit of levity just now."

He looked at Remus for a few heartbeats before turning his attention to the witch, his gaze sweeping over her features. "Yeah, yeah. Are we finished here?"

"Well, hang on." She lifted her head, holding his gaze. "What were you saying about the magic sensing that you were familiar to me?"

Sirius shrugged, very aware of the way she stood so close to him and having no desire to put any space between them. "Wait just a moment." Instead of anything that might pull them apart, he scooted her over until she was pushed into Remus' side. Reaching across her with his free hand, Sirius lifted her wrist to circle her fingers around Remus' elbow.

Hermione and Remus exchanged a look, both unable to help smirking.

"All right, that's better." Sirius gave what seemed a stern nod before he finally answered her. "It makes sense. Maybe the magic read it from you, the same way it reads a desired destination."

"I've never thought about that before," she said, nodding mechanically. "It does make one wonder, though—"

"What other sort or magics might be affected by our feelings," Remus finished for her.

"Well, were already know more . . . for lack of a better term, personal spells are effected by emotion." She offered a shrug of her own. "For instance, the—" She cut herself off as she quickly glanced around and then lowered her voice. "The Cruciatus Curse is more potent when the caster is angry."

Sirius shook his head. "But familiarity is something more . . . targeted, more specific."

She chewed at her lip in thought. "Exactly. What if magic is more sentient of a force than what is generally accepted by teachings of the Wizarding world?"

Puffing out his cheeks, Remus exhaled loudly. "I sincerely have no idea what that would mean."

"Neither do I," she said. "But it certainly is interesting to consider."

"Could this be of some help trying to get you home?"

She considered Sirius' question with a thoughtful frown. Her chest was heavy at the idea of never going home again. But it was also heavy at the thought of leaving them behind. This, she realized, was the emotional folly of getting close to them. Here she'd only known them for a day, but at home, where these two standing beside her had never been . . . . She pushed that aside for the time being.

"I honestly haven't the foggiest, but I don't think so. This might not change anything at all." She sagged between them. "As Remus said, there's a chance nothing comes of even looking. And I have to be prepared for that, because he was right in what he said last night. If we can't find a way for me to go home that won't change things here, then that's all there is to it. I'll just have to stay here."

Both men looked at a loss for what to say. She couldn't blame them—if she were in their shoes, she wouldn't know what words of comfort or advice, or whatever, to offer, either.

Making a miserable face, she tacked on, "Stuck with the two of you! God! What an awful fate!"

Remus burst out laughing as Sirius snorted a chuckle.

"C'mon," the werewolf said, starting to walk and tugging her along behind him—which dragged Sirius in their wake on account of their linked arms. "Let's go buy these and get you back out of sight."

---

As they stood at the counter having the books rung up, Hermione felt a tickle along the back of her neck, the fine hairs standing on end. It wasn't a touch. Remus' and Sirius' free hands were too far away, their occupied hands on her arms, still.

No, it felt more like . . . . A wash of cold filled the pit of her stomach. Like she was being watched.

Swallowing hard, she turned her head. The conversation her wizard and werewolf were holding with the witch at the register ceased to make sense to her ears as she looked around the ground floor of the bookshop.

There was the strangest sense crawling along her skin that whatever had set its gaze upon her knew her. She was suddenly very aware of her own breathing. Of the weight of her new, fine cloak on her shoulders. Of the tightness of the braid her typically wild hair had been pulled into—she hadn't yet had the chance to use her Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. Even the press of her pretty blue robes around her, more fitted than her Muggle clothes, was rather immediately a notice she could not escape.

All these things made her look like another person, save for her features. A random witch in a wizarding village, but . . . this cognizance. Whatever was watching her knew her face—knew her.

Hermione?

The voice was oddly muffled. Her head felt fuzzy . . . .

"Hermione!"

She started, snapping her head around to meet Sirius' wide-eyed gaze. "Huh?" The word fell from her lips in a reflexive tumble of sound.

Worry creasing his features, he glanced at Remus—who in turn looked about the shop floor, trying to locate whatever had held their witch's attention—Sirius turned from his place beside her to face her, clamping gentle hands over her shoulders. "You okay?"

"Yeah," again she spoke reflexively. Thinking better on her response, she shook her head. Now that her she'd lost whatever connection had been made a moment ago, she felt nothing. The shop was full of daylight, whirls of dust motes, the smell of books and the chatter of other customers.

No ominous, lurking thing that was observing her from some unseen vantage point.

"Sorry, I just had the oddest sense that . . . ." Looking between Remus and Sirius, she went on in a whisper as she tugged them toward the door of the shop, explaining precisely what she'd felt just now.

As they exited, they all agreed they did not like that at all. "You're going to come with us today."

Hermione's eyes widened as Remus started leading the way back toward the Shack. "Wait, what?" That hadn't been the plan. No, no. She was going to stay in the Shack, safely warded and studying the books they'd just purchased, while the two of them checked in with the Order.

Remus halted, the movement abrupt as he whirled on his heel to face her. "That back there? Whatever that was, it can't be good. If someone—or worse, something—knows who you are, then it stands to reason they know where you're from, and it means you are in more danger than we thought."

"He's right." Sirus' typically bright voice was grave as he nodded. "We can't let you stay here alone. We promised we'd keep you safe, remember?"

Hermione didn't know what was worse—that something was possibly after her, or that she was about to come face-to-face with a load of people she wasn't mentally prepared to handle. Albus Dumbledore before he'd had the chance to twist up his already warped morals further by deciding to place an infant in an neglectful home? The Weasleys while Molly was still pregnant with Ginny? Oh, God . . . . James Potter and Lily Evans . . . .

Her heart fell into her stomach at the reality that she would meet the parents Harry had never gotten to.

She ignored the stinging in the tip of her nose and blinked her vision clear. "Okay, okay." Hermione nodded, marshaling her emotional strength. "I can do this. I can. We all know what story we're telling everyone about me, so . . . I'm sure it will be fine."

Remus winced as Sirius responded, "Well, I wouldn't be that optimistic. This could blow up in all our faces and see to you being interrogated by Dumbledore."

Her face fell and she met his gaze with a quelling glare.

He crinkled the bridge of his nose and said to Remus, "Not the time for stating the obvious, was it?"

His expression pained, Remus shook his head.