{4-Solitude Was the Only Logical Ending}

Hermione thought for sure that she was going to be golden in terms of avoiding James and the lot, but she should have known better. Being Severus Snape's friend did nothing to deter them from their Gryffindor sense of family.

For some foolish reason, Hermione had chosen to do her homework in the common room, figuring that a single Transfiguration essay couldn't take her too long. Apparently, she was very wrong. The topic had been a little more complicated than she first thought it would be, and then she'd gotten engrossed in the texts it was on, and it merely snowballed into her reading half the text and missing dinner. Hermione regretted not accepting Severus on his offer of doing it in the library.

So, since she was the only one in the room when the dinner crowd came back, Hermione was spotted by the first to arrive.

And wasn't it the friendly James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter?

Hermione had actually talked with Remus quick, and he was kind enough, but Hermione was horrified of what James and Sirius would say about her... well, about Florizel anyways. Hanging about a Slytherin as she did, that couldn't mean anything good about her, or maybe they wouldn't care? She highly doubted it.

"Hullo," James said, plopping down across the table from her, smiling like he never stopped. Sirius took the chair next to him, and Remus being the shy doll he was, stood behind them, as did Peter.

"Hey," Hermione answered, feeling insecure with all her things spread out, and her girly handwriting there for all to see.

She tried to cover it up, but James spotted it in an instant.

"Transfiguration essay?"

Hermione nodded.

"I sat them down and we did ours yesterday. A bit more than we originally expected, but not too bad," James said, and Remus gathered the courage to scoff.

"You mean I gathered us up and Sirius mooched off me, while you all did your own work."

"You're a darling for letting me do it, too," Sirius cooed, and Hermione slid back in her chair a bit, mildly intimidated by the interaction. Then, he turned on her, "So what's the secret, huh? We're dying to know. Random new kid just shows up seventh year and talks to one person since day one, and hasn't made a stink at all? I'd bet on Merlin's balls that you're hiding something."

The other boys merely looked on as Sirius rambled on at Hermione, curiosity somehow never killing the cat before her... well, not until her real fifth year.

Hermione wondered how to answer briefly, when more people came in, but blatantly ignored the rendezvous they were having, not attempting to save her at all. She even wished Lily would walk in and catch James' attention instead, but why would fate want to work with her instead of against her?

"I'm not hiding anything," she said, scraping up a little Gryffindor courage to sound intimidating.

"Really? Handsome fella like you hiding positively nothing? I fail to believe that. If you're bent, that's totally fine, I don't even care what people have in their pants, long as your face is nice."

Hermione pursed her lips and felt like this was not a conversation she should be having with Harry's god-father, let alone right in the common room. It was extremely taboo in muggle Britain, in fact, it had hardly been legal for a decade.

James laughed, and shook his head, but Hermione was more focused on Remus' blush. Had he had a thing for his best friend at one point? It was kind of cute, but maybe she was reading too much into it and the topic merely embarrassed him.

"This is Sirius Black, don't let the name fool you, he's more of a Potter than I am at this point. And these are Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew." James gestured to everyone respectively, but Hermione didn't need it.

"I've seen Remus around," she said, gesturing her quill at him gently, "Lots of N.E.W.T.s together."

"Hey," the aforementioned Marauder smiled briefly, but shoved his hands in his pockets quietly.

Hermione could tell he was growing nervous as the full moon approached, soon leading all of them to turn and help their friend through the night.

"So, you slink around Snivellus a lot. Any particular reason?" Sirius questioned raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

"He's friendly enough," Hermione said shortly, not wanting to be bantered by the group for being friends with Severus.

"Sure," Sirius said with a laugh, "If you're into greasy bats."

Hermione scowled, but James seemed to want to redeem them all with a harsh nudge to Sirius' ribs, "Don't mind him, old family shite he won't let go. So, we've noticed you're pretty lonely, and we just wanted to extend an invitation to Hogsmeade with us this weekend. No pressure, it'll be us and some nice girls if they're your thing. You remember what one I've got my eye on, though, so paws off."

She let him persuade her into a possible acceptance, if not only to get them to go away. They took the maybe and let her alone, and seemed far too excited to hear from her when she decided. Hermione had heard nothing about a Hogsmeade trip until just then, so she wondered why no one had mentioned it... then again, she only hung out with Severus who was lucky he knew who was dating who half the time.

Hermione decided to head to the library, hoping to run into Severus if only in hopes of avoiding anymore run ins with Gryffindors who wanted to get to know her for some obscene reason.

She looked through half the library before finding Severus at one of the back reading tables, a lamp hovering over his book as he worked on what Hermione assumed was his Transfiguration essay. Taking a minute to approach him, she looked at him in the dim light and sighed. Her feelings over the time she had been there had increased significantly, but mostly in friendship, hearing Sirius call him a greasy bat earlier had filled her with so much protective hate... it was just a shame she felt like she was giving all her friendship to Severus only to have him throw it all away for Voldemort anyways.

What was she doing?

Hermione figured it was too late to just ex-communicate him now, so she walked over and set her books down before him, not able to care less about his shock.

"I thought you were going to finish it quickly, get dinner, then relax?"

Hermione's definition was ignore him at the library and search up time-travel books. Her searches were just as fruitless as they'd been at the beginning of the school year, but she didn't lose hope. She had roughly twenty years to figure it out, but she hoped to heaven that it would not take that long.

"I got caught up in the book and may or may not have read half of it."

Severus raised an eyebrow, looking displeased.

"How insufferable," he mocked her. The term had become endearing, she thought, which to her mind, was not a good sign about keeping their relationship strictly friends.

Of course, Severus Snape was probably very straight, his crush on Lily easy to prove that, so Hermione needn't worry he fancy her at all. As long as he thought she was a boy there was no problems that could arise.

Hermione sighed and pulled out her parchment, which was mostly done but for the final few blocks of her essay.

"You are much further than I thought you'd be," he remarked, and Hermione only sarcastically smiled in reply.

They worked in silence for a bit, until Hermione decided to broach a different subject.

"I was invited by a group of Gryffindors to Hogsmeade this weekend."

She had stopped working to talk, but he'd kept scribbling through her words, until he felt her stare on him and looked up to meet her eyes.

"And?"

"I don't know," Hermione tried to play it off cool, like Ron or Harry would have if they tried to talk about this stuff, but Ron was... emotionless unless completely devoted to you, and Harry was as close a man could get to being a girl about his emotions without being an actual girl.

"You don't really talk to anyone but me, I'm surprised they asked you at all, really."

"What does that mean?" She asked Severus in reply to his comment.

"Nothing, just that most people don't like me, so if you like me, I figured they wouldn't like you either."

"Well, the Head Boy asked me, maybe McGonagall asked him to do it?"

Snape narrowed his eyes and seemed to take on some of the seething hate Hermione knew he had for Harry's father.

"Potter, is a useless prick. All he does is pick on people, it's a wonder he has any friends at all."

Hermione was very conflicted in that moment, knowing what he does in the future to protect Harry and Lily, and what he does every full moon to help Remus! She also knew there was truth to his bullying, however, so Hermione wasn't entirely sure what to think. Then again, Severus was an awful person to her in the future, but here she was, sitting with him and being his friend.

"He does a lot for the people he cares about, I think."

"And what's that, Zel? Do you hang out with them to know this?"

Hermione shook her head and sighed, feeling very girly despite her outwards persona.

"No, but I think I will go with them to Hogsmeade, I need to de-stress."

Hermione had ulterior motives, which was basically to selfishly indulge in watching Lily and James Potter fall in love.

"Whatever, it's your prerogative."

Severus did not seem pleased with the idea of her going out with the Gryffindors, but Hermione decided she didn't care. Maybe she needed to draw away from him anyways and harden him up, let him go into the deep hole he was destined for anyways.

They worked together until the essays were done, and then they left, saying little to one-another.

Hermione thought hard on her walk back to the towers. She knew that the timeline would stay the way it had been, and she'd lived through enough of it to know that it was not nice, but every day longer she wanted to step in and tell someone, everyone what the future held and how to prevent it. To go into the room of requirement and blast away the damned diadem, then the diary, and the ring... and Hermione just wanted it all over with before it even started.

Unfortunately, as much as that was the way she wanted it to happen, she knew that it never could be.

Distancing herself from Severus, she decided, was a good path to take, and merely being acquaintances with the Marauders was plenty to hold her over and occupy a weekend or two over term. Besides that, she was going to find a way to get home, and then after that, life would go back to the way she knew it originally.

Hermione hated to see all these young and vibrant people die, but what could she do about fate? It felt like she had to remind herself that her courses of action were inconsequential, and soon it became a tiring fact. When she laid down in her single dorm, taking the charms off of her, she felt relief come over her. The mirror showed her in men's clothes, but it was her face, and not someone else's. Surely, she always saw herself, but reassuring there was still a girl under there when most people saw a boy, Hermione picked back up some of her resolve this way.

With a final glance into a few books from the library she had checked out, Hermione turned out her lamp and rolled into her covers, proud that she'd evaded breaking any rules since the year started, but depressed all the same that she had made any connection with the people around her... dead people who she knew one day wouldn't even remember her name.

A/N

All right, y'all. I have a very important decision to make, and hopefully I can do it without telling you how this whole thing ends? I'm sure I can, but will I? Anyways. I have a plan written out for this whole book, and while I think it's good, I also kind of want to through caution to the wind and just wing it as I go along? Sure, I'd use some ideas from my plan that I so masterfully crafted, but... winging it sounds fun too. Therefore I am left with a dilemma, and while I know you lovely readers would probably like some context as to what varies between me just throwing up words or me having a carefully charted itinerary, I can only offer you one hint. 

Is Sirius a yes or a no? 

Now, that's almost nothing to go on, especially because we all know what Sirius is like currently and in the future, but hey. I gave you the option of picking yes or no for Sirius so that way you have no idea which one corresponds to what way I will continue to write this fanfic. Also, you have no idea what the answers mean! It could be do you like him, do you think he's funny, do you think he should end up alone and sad? You'll never know! (Well, in a few chapters you might!)

 I'm going to put a link here that will expire in a week, that way people who are shy about commenting don't have to! Also, this way you guys have a hand in picking what happens! Sort of. 

I'll shut up now. Happy picking! 

http://www.polljunkie.com/poll/ebrpbs/sirius

(You'll have to copy and paste, sorry!)