Ultimatums

Chapter 9

Over her second year at Hogwarts, Hermione learnt to keep control over her Ueni powers, and slowly started to learn how to attach spells to the pieces of her core she extracted.

From the first week of the school year, Hermione would meet Regulus, Avery and Bellatrix in an empty classroom on a Friday to go through all sorts of exercises, mainly meditation, to gain control.

Thankfully, her parents agreed not to tell Dumbledore or Slughorn about the matter, for fear of them utilising her, and turning her into some kind of child soldier.

The Marauders also learnt to lay off slightly, knowing what would happen if they tipped her over the edge, but they wouldn't stop their pranking endeavours entirely.

One night, Hermione was in the library, reading up on her tribe in the restricted section, when Remus came up to her shyly.

"Hermione? Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked, quiet enough so Madam Pince couldn't hear.

"No"

The blunt reply surprised the werewolf, but he ploughed on through his mission.

"Please? It won't be long, and I won't bother you with it again, unless you want me to"

Hermione looked up, tearing her eyes from the tome she was holding. She moved her eyes to the chair opposite her, gesturing for him to sit while she finished her paragraph.

"Yes, Lupin?" she said finally, setting the book aside and looking at the boy expectantly. She schooled her face into a mask of indifference and waited for him to find his words.

"How are you? With the whole.... thing? Your mother wouldn't say anything about what happened that day, and neither will the Blacks.... Fort knox secret huh?" Remus rambled.

Hermione raised a brow at the Muggle term "What's it to you, Lupin? Why do you feel the need to know? So you can find chinks in my armour for your immature pranks?"

Pinkening slightly, Remus whispered as the librarian turned her head his way "No! James is worried about you and"

"So he can't ask himself? Can't get off his own arse to enquire after his sister, and instead sends the only slightly tolerable one out of the four of you? That doesn't sound like worried behaviour Lupin" Hermione snapped, opening her book back up again.

"He thought you wouldn't listen to him, but he knew you spoke to me when I stayed over, so he thought I could..." what Remus wasn't saying, was that James thought the pair could relate. Both of them being magical creatures and all. But Remus didn't know if he wanted to reveal everything just yet. "I could help"

Hermione scoffed, her head buried in the book so only her manic curls could be seen. "I doubt it Lupin. Now if you could kindly bugger off -"

"Hermione! I... I'm a magical creature too. I can help" he avoided saying werewolf, hoping she would think he was a forest nymph or something, but Hermione just looked at him, a sliver of sympathy breaking through her mask.

"I know what you are, Lupin. And in another life, our shared situation could have made us friends. But I can't excuse your role in James and Sirius's torment. You need to grow a spine. Do tell James not to worry about me though. It makes it harder for me to..." Hermione wavered between hate and dislike, but settled for "loathe him"

Hermione had been suspicious of Remus's condition since she'd first known him. The scars that couldn't quite heal on his face, seeing as they were caused by a cursed being, the tiredness around the full moon and the constant "visiting his mother". But she'd finally realised when she noticed the timing of Remus's visit to her house.