Braving the Past

Chapter 33: Matchmaker

The light chirping of birds and heavy snoring greeted Hermione's ears when she awoke in the hospital wing the next morning. Warmth enveloped her from nearly every direction. She peeked an eye open against the early sunlight.

Currently, she lay wrapped up in Remus' arms, her entire front laying across a chest she desperately hoped had fully healed. Her back was secured by the much smaller form of Peter who had somehow managed to curl into a ball and keep from falling off the edge of the bed overnight. On Hermione's bent legs rested Sirius, his shaggy black hair sprawled hazardly across her knees. Hermione angled her head slightly to find James on Sirius's stomach, his long legs dangling off the hospital bed.

Hermione marveled at how they were all able to squish their way in and stay there the whole night. Her eyes moved to Madam Pomfrey's office, but there was not a peep from her either. She supposed the matron often disregarded the rules and allowed these boys to stay the night after full moons.

Though her legs had long fallen asleep, Hermione couldn't bring herself to shake them free lest she disturb her friends. So as she lay there, she began to formulate a plan in her head. Now that the boys knew of Tom's existence and had agreed to help, they needed to find him.

And she knew the only way to find him was to find Voldemort himself. But how? There were no books that could help her with this kind of problem, and because of this, Hermione felt herself entirely stuck.

"You're biting your poor lip again," Remus mumbled.

Hermione could feel it reverberate in his chest through her cheek.

"How would you know, you can't even see it?" she shot back. Then she focused her eyes on the boys she could see, and found Sirius grinning at her.

"Bet you didn't know that animagi can communicate with each other telepathically," he said.

"They cannot!" Hermione said haughtily, shooting away from Remus. Peter, in turn, was shoved off the bed while Remus winced slightly from the jarring movement.

She could also point out that Remus wasn't an animagi, but supposed that would just remind him of being the odd one out.

"Just because you've got plenty of space on the bed..." Peter mumbled as he hazily clambered to his knees.

Sirius chuckled and shoved James off his stomach as he sat up. "No, we've just become outstanding at silent communication with one another."

"Meaning, they make really weird faces and simply don't care what others think," Peter said once he had taken a seat back on the edge of the bed.

James looked affronted as he turned wildly to Peter. "Whadaya mean they?" he demanded. "Wormtail, you make faces at us all the time!"

Peter shrugged uncomfortably, as everyone's attention was now on him. "Well, I've never been good at the whole silent thing. You know how clumsy and blaring I can get. I just can't communicate well, loud or silent."

"Well," Hermione piped in, "you're communicating now, so that's a good start."

Peter blushed and scratched his ear.

"Well, now that you're all awake, I think it's time we discussed how to find Tom," Hermione announced. "He's been out there undetected for too long, and sooner or later, he's going to find himself."

James snorted. "Find himself. Sounds like he's on a spiritual mission for self-importance."

Remus roughly nudged James' leg with his own, and looked back up to Hermione.

"Where do you propose we start?"

Hermione hesitated. "That's where I'm not quite sure..."

Remus scrunched up his face in thought, and Sirius took advantage of the silence.