With more pep in her step than usual, Hermione joined Lily and the boys for breakfast as the sky bore less clouds than usual. It was growing to be a beautiful Friday morning, perfect for Hermione's first midnight Astronomy class. Her second week back in 1977 was almost complete; she had made tremendous development in getting to know Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter. She could confidently say that she knew more information than their stories could ever hold, and wouldn't want to trade her new friendships for nearly anything else.

Hermione began to let down her guard with each of them more than she anticipated. Even though she wasn't Hermione, and certainly didn't have to be back in 1977, she tried to show her true colors while pretending to be Harper around the clock. Hermione not wanting lies to become a part of her agenda rooted this belief.

But Hermione's fear of the unknown would always remain present in her mind. After all, she wasn't back in this time period to strengthen her studies and become a better student. She was here to find something that no one had ever found. It was outside of her comfort zone, of course, and becoming okay with that was something that Hermione struggled with underneath Harper's new persona. But her studies would still reign high up on Hermione's list of important things.

This whole experience was like jumping off of the deep end for Hermione when she was expecting to ease her way in. Fortunately, the presence of her future Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher helped more than she had anticipated. Hermione discovered the not-so-subtle bookworm in Remus, and her personality as Hermione was drawn to him more than she would have initially liked. To Hermione, Remus helped facilitate the jumping feeling.

And nearly two weeks in, she found herself getting nervous around him, feeling the need to impress him with her intelligence. Her face would grow pink at the very thought of Remus. The only person that Hermione had truly ever thought of in this way was Viktor Krum, and that was well over a year ago. It had been a while; Hermione wasn't used to this and didn't know how to stop it.

This is your teacher, Hermione kept telling herself, stop before you do something stupid, she warned. But on only the second Friday of the term, Hermione found herself looking over at the brown-eyed boy more than she should have, while he failed to truly notice.

"You know we've got a surprise for you this weekend, Harper," Sirius spoke, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. Sirius stared at the girl he hoped was good as a somewhat confused smile rose upon her face. She tilted her head.

"Is that so?" Hermione added as Lily nodded.

"Yeah, you're gonna go bonkers," Peter added, "It's a-"

"Zip it, Wormy, we wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," James spoke dramatically, getting a laugh out of Sirius and Lily.

"Well, I'm excited," said Hermione with an anxious look on her face. Anything that was unknown to Hermione was something to be feared, especially back in this time. Although Hermione had a gut feeling that whatever her weekend surprise was wouldn't be dark in any way, she still feared any sort of information getting loose. It wasn't something she could afford.

"You're in for a real treat," Remus finished as the six of them started to clear their empty breakfast plates, bringing out a subtle smile from Hermione's face.

Off to their first class of the day the six of them went, Defense Against the Dark Arts to be specific. And for that class, Professor Karasu brought a warm welcome to the seventh-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws sharing it together. She reminded Hermione of Hagrid in a way. They both were incredibly selfless and modest people, eager to help whenever they could.

Hermione took her seat in the back row of desks next to James, while Professor Karasu started class.

"So, Harper," James started, whispering into Hermione's ear while she began to take notes, "when were you going to tell me that you've got the eye for Remus?"

"What?" Hermione spoke loudly with a shocked look on her face, interrupting the professor.

"Is there something wrong, Ms. Slughorn?" Karasu asked calmly, resulting in a surplus of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws looking in her direction for longer than she would have liked. Remus caught Hermione's eye for a split second, sitting only two rows in front of her and James.

"No, no," she gulped, "nothing's wrong." James continued to giggle to himself.

"Well," whispered James as soon as Karasu picked up the lecture where she had left off.

Hermione blushed. "I do not fancy Remus."

"And I don't fancy Lily, blah, blah, blah. What's all this lying about?"

"You fancy Lily?"

"Oh, stop trying to change the subject. I have for years; it's old news."

"Wow, I can't say I expected that," Hermione said, knowing bloody well that it was anything but unexpected. A selfish part of her hoped to see James and Lily grow to be more than friends while back in 1977, as they would.

"Anyways," continued James, "you and Remus."

Hermione spent the remainder of the class period trying to convince James that she, in fact, didn't have an eye out for Remus. But James held his head high when it came to things such a this. He may have been known for his pranking skills, but he was all-around a smart person; he had Harper figured out before she could even figure herself out.

And Hermione, as she continued to battle ideas with James throughout the class, knew that his accusation wasn't completely false, even though she denied it more times than she could keep track. She didn't want to put a label on the minor feelings that she had: it was too soon.

And after battling with James, Hermione battled herself for the rest of the day, trying to convince herself that she wouldn't, shouldn't, and couldn't have any sort of feelings for anyone here. She couldn't risk getting derailed from saving James and Lily, she just couldn't. Hermione's thoughts almost got in the way of her plans for the night: she had nearly forgotten about her midnight Astronomy class with Sirius.

After supper and a quick nap, Hermione and Sirius headed to Astronomy, almost always the smallest class in each year, led by the loony yet strict Professor Sinistra. Only eight students in total filled up the class, approximately two from each house, Harper and Sirius being the two Gryffindors. Deep into the first unit of the term, Sinistra had assigned constellations for each house pair to find and study, which posed more difficulty to Hermione than she had anticipated.

The determined Gryffindor fussed with the telescope more than she should have, and Sirius simply stepped back, watched, and laughed. Harper's stubbornness wouldn't ever not make him smile, and if he had learned anything from Haper in the past two weeks, it's that she seemed to be good. He wanted her to be good more than anything.

Sirius had grown to admire certain parts of Harper's personality that he hadn't deeply thought about before and learned that she wasn't the delicate, quiet girl that he assumed she was. Sirius found himself lost in his thoughts while Harper dabbled with the telescope, frustrated with the blurriness. He had never admired a girl who cared so much about school work before, that's for certain.

The "off" feeling that Sirius had about Harper had evolved into "different." Harper was different than any other girl Sirius had taken time out of the day to think about. Never before had a girl made Sirius laugh just by messing with a telescope and getting frustrated with it. The random snogging that Sirius was used to hadn't usually taken place with a girl he could willing stand for more than a few minutes. But Harper, Sirius thought, he could spend hours with her, let alone a few minutes.

And of course, Harper was still fidgeting with the telescope.

"Do you want my help, Harper?" Sirius politely asked the stubborn girl, whose face of frustration soon blended into an embarrassed grin and a shy laugh.

"Yeah, I, uh, I think I might need it," she spoke back, embarrassed. Hermione certainly wasn't one to be less than the best; getting help in a class was out of the ordinary for her.

"Alright, Little Sluggy, shall we finally begin our search for the stars?" Sirius asked with a smirk upon his face. He soon discovered that ever time he smirked like that, she laughed. And she did.

In what felt like minutes, the hour-long class had come to an end.

"Clean up your stations, and I'll see you next Wednesday for our classroom portion," finished Professor Sinistra as she yawned and left the Astronomy tower. Hermione and Sirius tidied up their area and organized the materials that they used for the day.

The short walk back to the Gryffindor common room felt like a very long time for the two tired seventh-years; it had been a, especially long day. As the Astronomy partners parted ways to their own dorms, Sirius realized that he wanted to spend more time with her despite his exhaustion.

Hermione, however, was fast asleep only moments after her head landed on the pillow. She was so tired that she didn't even hear Marlene's obnoxiously loud snoring before falling asleep.

Luckily for Hermione, however, Marlene wasn't in the girls' dorm at the time, despite the hour of night. Neither was Alice or Lily. Having planned Harper's surprise for the following day with the boys, they left Hermione as the sole person in the girl's dorm, other than Pickles the cat, of course.

And Sirius, after parting ways with Harper, joined Lily, Marlene, Alice, and his male roommates in the dorm and lazily lied down on his bed, his body as heavy as a rock. Although this was all for Harper, the only thing that Sirius wanted to do right now was sleep. But Lily, and clearly everyone else in the room, had other plans.

"Have you all completed your part yet?" Lily tiredly asked.

Everyone nodded and each grabbed a small bit of parchment from their pocket with a note unknown to Harper scribbled out in it, even the exhausted Sirius. James had a smirk spread across his face, and the reflection of the moonlight onto his glasses made it hard to see his usually bright hazel eyes.

He said, "this is gonna be one hell of an initiation for our new friend Harper Slughorn."

A/N: yayyy hermione's gonna have an initiation into the group! i wonder what she'll have to do... please vote really quick if you liked it, and comment feedback please! thanks for 170+ views!

A/N UPDATE (6/22/20): ive decided to unpublish each remaining chapter until i have fully edited them! this will allow me to edit them not in all one sitting (bc they usually take 2+ hours for me to rewrite). i'll probably get it done quicker this way! anyways, thanks for reading! updates will be unscheduled, but quick, btw. - callahan