Chapter 64: Some Party
There was a noise.
It was quiet. Or, rather, it was muffled as if it was being made in another room and he was hearing it through a closed door or a wall. He trained his ear on it, brows pulling together and frown tugging at his mouth as he listened hard. It was an odd sort of noise, like the scurrying of mice, if mice were eighty times their normal size and moving house loudly in the next room.
"What's the matter?" Hermione asked, lips smoothing the washboard uncertainty had made of his forehead.
"Just a noise," Remus said, though it wasn't just a noise. It was a strange and off-putting noise. If it were any other day, he would be up and hunting it down as surely as he would an odd smell; the wolf hated things it couldn't explain, bristled at it and took it as a threat to his territory, and Remus was forced to investigate just to quell the disquiet in his brain. Unfortunately for the wolf, this was not an ordinary day. This was Hermione's last day with him, and he was not going to waste it searching out the source of that noise.
"Yes, it is rather loud," she commented, hand not quite managing to distract him from her words as she traced the scars on his chest.
"You hear it?"
"Mm-hm," she nodded, propping herself up on her elbows and craning her neck to look out the gap in his curtains. "Looks like Gryffindor is winning."
He blinked back his confusion and set his ears listening to more than just that noise. He could hear the game, a massive cry of dismay as the ball changed hands or a Bludger connected with a favourite player followed by an equally loud shout as someone scored a goal. He could barely make out Gaffin's voice announcing the score. "James just scored. We're up by one-fifty."
"How should we celebrate?" Hermione asked, batting her lashes at him.
"Don't you ever get tired?" he groaned.
"Not of you," she grinned and threw herself at him, taking his mouth and making it very difficult for him to focus on anything else. With each goal scored on their side, Hermione found a new and more wonderful way to mark the occasion, until he was certain there was not a part of him her lips, tongue and fingers had not touched.
"Merlin, it's not fair," he gasped. "Why are you leaving?"
She took her time in answering a question that he had not expected a response to. As she slid up his body, pulling yet another moan from him, she said, "Evil to defeat. Elves to free. NEWTS to pass."
He could only nod his agreement, too lost in the sensation of her skin on his to grasp what she was saying.
"Remus, I was thinking," she said, pushing herself up to straddle his hips. "Have you been reading the news lately?"
It took everything in him to focus on her words and not the feel of her legs and sex pressing against him. "News? Yes."
"Do you think maybe you ought to do something about it?"
"About what?" His attention now fully on what it was she wanted of him. She knew things, important things, things that he was meant to do. She had been very careful to avoid specifically telling him what would happen, but occasionally she would offer hints, imply via glances and subtle word choices what choices he ought to make.
"The Death Eaters. Voldemort. Don't you think you ought to do something?" she said, looking down at him very pointedly.
He blinked a bit stupidly. "Am I supposed to do something?"
The events he read about in the Prophet were awful. He wasn't denying that, but they seemed like things barely connected to him. Despite his condition, he was pureblood as were the majority of his friends. He had Muggle-born and half-blood friends; he had worried terribly about them when reading stories of Death Eater attacks with underaged victims. But, as a rule, he avoided poking his nose where it didn't belong. It was a self-preservation technique that he had honed since being bitten to avoid drawing unnecessary and unwanted attention to himself. But here was Hermione all but telling him to get involved, to poke his nose in, to get noticed.
"What am I meant to do?"
She just shrugged.
"Hermione, enough. You've got to give me more than that."
"Well, if it were me, and I were the one trying to get involved and make a difference," she paused as if considering, her face pulled into an angelic mask that didn't fool him for a minute. "I would ask around. Talk to the Muggle-borns. Talk to the professors. I'm certain there would be likeminded individuals out there who are equally as concerned."
"You could have just said that in the first place," he grumbled.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I have not made any suggestions to influence your future choices. I would never suggest that you go to Professor Dumbledore and tell him how worried you are about the events happening outside of Hogwarts. I would never suggest that you join a secret organization under his command to help defeat Voldemort and imprison his followers. I wouldn't do that. It would be tampering." She looked at him meaningfully. "I don't tamper."
"No, of course you don't. That would be against the rules... like sleeping with someone from the past. Not something you would do."
"Exactly!" The smile she offered was enormous and so full of cheek he could easily believe her related to Harry.
"Fine, I'll do what you have not suggested."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she commented and looked away. "Oh, Harry's diving."
"That's the end of the game, then," he sighed. "We best get cleaned up so we can join whatever party they've set up down in the common room." He wondered if that's what the noise had been, but doubted that anyone would have missed the match to throw a few decorations at the walls. Besides, they were six floors above the common room. Even the largest of mice moving the most obstinate of furniture couldn't make noises loud enough for him to hear at such a distance. No, whatever that noise was, it was considerably closer.
Hermione disappeared into the washroom, leaving him to listen to the cheers and songs echoing up from the grounds and growing closer as the celebration left the pitch and made its way to the castle. He was also left alone with that noise. He pushed himself to the edge of the bed and waited, tilting his head until his ear caught its direction. Head on sideways, his ear guiding the way, he walked the short distance to Harry's trunk. The noise was no louder, but there was no doubt that this was the source.
Curiosity getting the better of him, he gave the lid a tug.
"What's the matter?"
Remus turned and saw Hermione framed in the doorway, her body wrapped in his dressing gown, and his mouth went dry. "Uh, just a noise."
He offered the trunk one final glance before heading to the shower. He was out and dressed as the last Gryffindor pushed himself in through the portrait hole. If they were very lucky, James would be too busy to notice them entering the common room from the wrong door.
"Remus!" Peter cried and threw himself at the boy before he had even finished descending the stairs. "I looked everywhere for you? What have you been doing all this time?"
"One day, when you're older, maybe you'll find out for yourself," the boy replied with a mischievous grin.
"Oh, I long for that day," he sighed and fell back into his friend's arms with melodramatic sigh. "To be loved!"
Remus snorted and shoved him off, glancing around the common room and smiling. "I take it we won."
"We didn't just win," Peter insisted. "We throttled them! They never stood a chance! Not against the best Gryffindor line-up in the history of the sport. We are THE BEST!" His voice had grown into a bellow, overpowering even Tildy's raucous, clattering excuse for music. Half the common room cheered with his declarations. "You should have seen Sirius out there, mate. Hit that bludger so hard, I swear he must have splintered his bat!"
"He turned up?
"Hm? Oh, yeah," he waved away the boy's concern.
Remus frowned at the casual dismissal. Sirius had been in no state to play so much as a pennywhistle the last he saw the boy; he couldn't see him playing as well as described.
Normally, Remus would happily celebrate a win with the rest of his house, but he could not shake the concern that Sirius had performed some kind of charm on himself. He had been so strange all week, vanishing for hours on end, blundering around the castle, performing poorly in class and on the pitch. Remus could not think of another reason for the boy's inconsistent and uncharacteristic behaviour. Sirius had done something, and he could guarantee it was something daft.
"I'll be right back," he shouted to Hermione, and pushed his way through the common room. Sirius was there somewhere, and he wanted to see just what the daft idiot had managed to do to himself.
He found the boy easily enough. He was leaning in to talk to a pretty blonde. Remus knew the pose well, had watched the boy perfect it over three years and with countless girls throughout the school and village. It was a pose that never failed to win him a kiss, and it was clearly going to work on this girl, as it had on innumerable others.
"Sirius," he shouted.
"Ah, Moony!" he smirked and leaned in to whisper something to his catch. "Have you met, Julia?"
"No. Hello, Julia," Remus said, holding and arm out toward the rest of the room. "Goodbye, Julia."
The girl huffed and looked to Sirius, but the boy only shrugged.
"What's the matter?" he asked as his quarry stomped away.
"You," he replied, eyebrow rising in challenge. "Or have you forgotten our talk from last night?" He studied the boy's face, watching for some sign of recognition. There was none. There was no hint of the crumpled and forlorn boy who had all but cried on his shoulder the previous night.
"I'm not sure what you're on about, Moony, but if you want me to find you a girl, you just have to ask. I'm sure Julia has a friend."
"I don't want—Sirius, I have Hermione. I don't want anyone else. Not tonight. Not ever. I love her," Remus practically shouted. He had wanted the removal of Hermione from his mind and heart, just as Sirius had Harry. He wanted to cut the memories out so the pain wouldn't cripple him. He had wanted it. He had planned for it. When faced with the impending agony of her departure, it had seemed perfectly natural, but, looking at Sirius, it seemed anything but. Sirius had been a wreck, crying and broken just ten hours earlier. Now, he was as careless and self-centred as he had been for years. This wasn't right.
Sirius blinked a moment, frowning. "Who is Hermione?"
"Dammit, Sirius, what the hell did you do?" he groaned and offered the boy a hard shove.
"You tw—"
The boy's insults were cut short by a very disapproving meow. Sirius frowned his confusion and disapproval down at the silver tabby sitting by his feet.
"What do you want?" he asked none too politely.
The cat leapt onto a table and stared at him, eyes narrowing and mouth turning down before turning and offering Remus the same look. He had never seen a cat look so disapproving in his life. The tabby broke from him and looked around at the party, frown dropping further as it watched a seventh year run through the common room with a bottle of fire whiskey in his hands. Its eyes narrowed to slits as it followed a couple as they groped their way toward the boys' dormitory. If that cat could speak, he knew what it would be saying: Detention.
When it turned back to him, he nodded. "I'll go get them."
He left Sirius to reconnoitre the available girls and pushed his way through the crush of revellers. He found Hermione and Peter dancing where he had left them. Well, dancing wasn't exactly what he'd call it, flailing wildly more or less in time with the music would be more accurate. Peter never did have much skill in the way of dancing.
The girl grabbed his hand and pulled him into their spasmodic dance. He hated for her to leave without having gotten to dance together, but if he took too long McGonagall might transform and put an end to the entire celebration. So he leaned into her hair and shouted, "McGonagall is here!"
Her smile fell along with her arms. "Now?"
He nodded and gestured to the rest of the room, "Have to find the others."
She trailed along behind him as they hunted. James and Lily they found in a relatively quiet corner, apparently making up for the three years Lily wouldn't allow James to lay a hand on her. It took Remus physically removing the girl from the Chaser's face before they even acknowledged anyone was speaking to them.
"Whathehell!" James cried.
"It's time to go," Hermione said in a tone that left absolutely no room for argument. "McGonagall is waiting."
"She couldn't have waited until after the party?" he grumbled. Lily looked equally as displeased, but she made no complaint.
"Where's Harry?" Remus asked.
James offered a shrug. "Was dancing with Tidly last I looked."
Tildy was easily spotted jumping head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, but any of the boys pogoing nearby were clearly not Harry. Still, they made their way to the exuberant DJ.
"Tildy, have you seen Harry?" Lily shouted.
Without missing a beat, the girl pointed to a chair by the fire and kept on jumping in time to the music.
The chair held not only Harry but McGonagall. The silver tabby sat on the boy's thigh, batting at his sullen face with one paw and mewing both sternly and sympathetically. Behind him, the others muttered their suppositions about what had the boy looking so crestfallen. Only Remus understood the real reason for his loss of spirits.