Despite James being out of the hospital wing and back to life as it was before, his injury still had a monumental effect on Sirius. The moment that he saw James' unconscious body carried out onto the field would forever be burned into his mind whether he liked it or not; he couldn't erase the memory, and it was killing his mind.

And just as he had done so often at the start of the term, Sirius took back his habit of borrowing James' invisibility cloak for the evening and drifting away beneath it. In it, he disappeared and the intensity of his worries could be dimmed for a moment; his problems paused.

Though his visiting hours with James were a tremendous help with the struggles that Sirius was taking on mentally, he still found himself wandering away with the invisibility cloak more often than not when nightfall struck. To Sirius, there was nothing wrong with being alone with himself during these hours, simply staring up at the stars, at his namesake, and doing his best count his blessings instead of fermenting his problems.

Especially the nights following the Amortentia incident in Potions class, Sirius had a lot to think about. He barely got any sleep that following week; snagging James' cloak became second nature to him, just as it had been in previous years. A side note, having this habit gave Sirius a inner eye to the well-kept secrets of those roaming about Hogwarts after dark, just like himself. Even the secrets of his closest friends.

One night, when Sirius' carried out his routine of stealing the cloak and migrating to the Astronomy tower, he caught sight of two familiar faces along the way. James and Lily.

They're probably just making their nightly rounds, as Head Boy and Girl. Of course Sirius assumed this, after all they were chosen as the heads this year. But peering at them from down the dark corridor, he spotted something that seemed to be more than just nightly rounds.

They were talking, Lily was laughing. Sirius couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were smiling. They were happy. In a moment where they thought they were alone, clueless to Sirius' presence down the hall, James brushed the hair behind Lily's ear and gently kissed her. And she kissed him back.

Oh, I'm never gonna let him hear the end of this, Sirius thought, thinking about how much he'll tease him the following morning for kissing Lily. But no, he couldn't. Sirius was invisible, he wasn't supposed to be there, and mentioning anything would earn him just as much teasing in return as someone who took nightly walks to clear his mind.

It was just another thing he had to keep to himself, for now at least. He would return to the Astronomy tower, seeing James' no-longer-injured face everywhere he went. James was healed, he was happy, so why wasn't Sirius happy for him? From what he saw, it seemed as if James had finally got the girl after years of waiting, and he was out of the hospital wing, happy and healthy.

I'm not jealous. I swear, I'm not.

From then on, he distracted himself with the stars, but the thought of Harper and the Amortentia refused to leave from his thoughts.

Meanwhile, wearing an identical copy of cloak hiding Sirius' identity, Hermione roamed the halls at night to check on the evil items belonging to Peter that still lurked in the Room of Requirement. Though her thoughts a few days prior had her believing it would be best to leave everything untouched, why not create a little chaos in Peter's mind? If something went missing, and Peter went crazy, it would only further complicate his agenda, and possibly strengthen Hermione's along the way. She believed in this case, that with greater risk, there would be greater reward.

With the invisibility cloak over her shoulders and frizzy hair, Hermione inched out of the Gryffindor common room and over to the staircase that would lead her to the Room of Requirement. Walking through the dimly lit halls, Hermione heard voices in the distance, and almost immediately grabbed for her wand, just in case.

But from around the bend, Hermione saw something that didn't appear to be a threat at all. The last few seconds of a kiss shared by James and Lily was what she saw. And for a moment, she forgot about the Room of Requirement, about Peter, about Sirius, about everything. She savored this moment of love and happiness, as if she were the one in it. Words couldn't express how thankful she was to experience a slice of this period despite all of it's negative consequences, for moments such as this. A slight amount of joy could cover up a day of sadness if you let it; Hermione wouldn't take anything for granted when being back in this time.

And that very thought pulled her back into focus. As James and Lily departed from the dark corridor hand in hand, Hermione turned for the staircase and quietly marched several steps up. The Room of Requirement presented itself to her quicker than usual, and the inside of it remained nearly identical to when she had examined it nearly a week prior.

On the table in front of her lay the three items: the diadem, the notebook, and the Amortentia. Now came the time to decide. Which item would she steal?

With the immense darkness that it carried, Hermione felt that the diadem would do more harm that good being in her hands. The magical depths that she felt it held would be too much to handle, especially considering it makes her want to faint after holding it for a split second.

Her first instinct was to take away the Amortentia, for Emma's sake. Though she barely knew the girl, knowing that Peter had been using this potion on her had been killing Hermione for nearly a week, and she couldn't hold on to that burden anymore. She didn't want to. But Hermione still didn't know Peter's reason for using this powerfully illegal potion on Emma. Taking it away now would make finding that out virtually impossible, and though it killed her inside, Hermione couldn't take the vial of Amortentia.

That left the notebook. To Hermione's knowledge, taking this item would prove to be the least consequential out of the three for herself. Plus, with it, she had access to Peter's takeaways from the meetings, and, therefore, everything he was planning on relaying to Voldemort up until this point. Having it missing would drive Peter crazy, and Hermione knew better than anyone that certain actions made under stress don't turn out to be very successful.

Hermione left the Room of Requirement with the notebook in hand. At the same time, Sirius began to notice the sun upon the horizon from the Astronomy tower. Dawn had called both of them back to their dorm rooms. They would each be welcomed to a new day where their innermost thoughts would be forcefully pushed the back of their minds once more.

While Sirius slept though his occasional wake-up call (also known as James charming the sheets on Sirius' bed to float up and away from his body leaving him cold), Hermione threw a good night's sleep to the curb, and isolated herself in the the library with the notebook in order to get any possible information from it.

First and foremost, she couldn't be walking around with a notebook that Peter would very clearly recognize as his own. She fashioned an alternate cover with a spell she had learned a few years back, making the notebook seem as if it were an Astronomy textbook. While reading this new Astronomy textbook, all Hermione found was information that she already knew. Though she wasn't in the Order in this generation, she certainly was in her own: this was old news to her.

But for Peter, on the other hand, this was new and fresh and crucial information for his Dark Lord to possess. Without it, so many things could change, all unknown to even Hermione. Perhaps even Dumbledore.

The thought of actually making not only an impact on the lives of these people but a change in the timeline before her started to scare Hermione for the first time. Any trip back in time required serious consideration and management of preserving the timeline, but this trip was different, by no surprise. Her goal was the change these events, not preserve them. She had always known that, but the idea of it actually happening was a heavy weight.

But she had fallen far too deep in the era of these Marauders. There was no turning back from the second she stepped foot in younger Hagrid's pumpkin patch, and there sure as hell was no turning back now.

With this, she transformed her fear into determination, just as she had transformed Peter's notebook into an Astronomy textbook: with a mask. She was Harper Slughorn, and she had a job to do.

The next task to accomplish for this job of her's was, once again, related to Peter's special someone: she needed to research Emma Vanity. Anything under the Vanity name, anything about her family's past, anything that made her a valuable girl who Peter, and therefore Voldemort, would want to go after.

As of now, it was routine for Emma to join the group of Gryffindor seventh years at their own table for breakfast. Today, Hermione sat across from Emma. Nothing seemed out of the sort this morning, except for how utterly happy both James and Lily were. She, and Sirius not to her knowledge, would keep their little secret for now and admire their giddiness from afar. After all, her attention needed to remain on Emma.

The amount of staring that Hermione did at Emma could convince someone that she had a crush on her. She payed attention to everything Emma did, from the way she looked at Peter to the way she ate her food and drank her juice. Nothing was usual. That is, until a lightbulb went out inside Hermione's brain.

The juice! Her cup! It easily could have Amortentia in it.

She had to find out. When Emma was knee deep in a conversation with Peter, Hermione "confused" Emma's cup with her cup, picked it up, and pretended to take a sip. She took a deep inhale, and nothing. It was regular pumpkin juice.

"Harper, I think you've mixed up our cups," Emma suggested after taking notice. Though she was calm, Emma was without a doubt weirded out by Harper in this moment.

"Oh," she started, cheeks red, "sorry." Hermione placed the cup down, and the rest of the table carried on with their conversation as if nothing had happened. The only thing unusual at the table to the rest was the way that Harper was acting.

The next time, well, appropriate time that Hermione would be able to learn more about Emma was the Defense Against the Dark Arts class later in the day, shared by the Gryffindors and the Slytherins.

Bored out of her mind in Charms, Hermione counted down the minutes until Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Not once had she looked truly forward to this class before this, but there really is a first time for everything.

Surprisingly, everyone was in their seats before Professor Karasu started class. Next to Hermione, James was perkier than usual.

"You'll never believe what happened, Harper," he exclaimed.

"What's up, James?"

"Wait, has Lily told you anything," he paused, "interesting in the last twenty-four hours?"

Hermione knew where this was going, and decided to play along. "Nope," she said. "Wait, did something," she lowered her voice, pretending to be out of the know, "happen between you two?"

James didn't even need speak. The aggressive nodding of his head and overly excited smile did just the trick.

"Spill," she spoke back eagerly, almost forgetful of her self-set goal to keep an eye on Emma.

"We were in one of the corridors for one of our night shifts, and I don't know what came over me, but I kissed her. And Harper," he beamed with excitement, "she didn't stop me."

"It's almost like the feelings are mutual or something."

"Yeah," he dazed, then dawned upon Harper with an intrigued look. "You know something, don't you," he smirked.

"A lady never tells," she smirked, before Professor Karasu made a few aggressive remarks towards Harper and James' direction and resumed her lecture. Sharing one last laugh together over James' excitement and blatant feelings for Lily, Hermione smiled ear to ear and savored the moment. Sirius couldn't help but take notice of her happiness. He wanted so badly to be the one laughing with her, but there was always Astronomy class for that.

And thankfully for Sirius, the two shared that vert class later that evening, where the mutual nervousness he shared with Harper would only become more amplified.

A/N UPDATE (6/3/21): i just took my last ever final exams of high school! i'm so thrilled to be done, especially since it gives me more time to work on finishing this story. sryyyyy it's been a whole month since my last update! anywayyy i got a little inspo and pretty much have everything planned out for the rest of this story like actually this time, with more details and stuff. no more writer's block! i just gotta sit down and do it lol. - callahan