The Family that Pranks Together

Herbology was not one of Hermione's favorite classes, and so she was already slightly irritable as she was headed to class. Professor Root had decided that today's lesson should take place on the very outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. There were certain plants that only grew wild, and refused domestic cultivation. Today was meant to be rather like a scavenger hunt. They each received a list of possible plants that were wild crafted only, and might grow in the cool temperate region of the forest. They shared Herbology with Slytherin, so Lily and Hermione were going to attempt to approach Severus sometime during class. The girls watched the other groups nervously. Several of the Slytherin boys had cast sly looks their way. Hermione noticed that the boys (James, Sirius, Remus and Peter) had stuck quite close to her and Lily, and she groaned in irritation.

"What?" Lily glanced at her curiously.

"Them. They're hanging around," Hermione replied with a dark glare for her brother. Lily understood immediately.

"Well…I could go. We'll move in just a bit so they can't see us completely, and then I'll sneak over to where Sev is." Lily murmured with her back to the boys. Hermione shrugged.

"I guess we'll have to," she murmured.

Waiting around for other people to do things was not something that Hermione (either one of her) really cared for. She tried to do the scavenger hunt by herself, and she tried to make sure that she stayed slightly out of the line of her brother and his annoying friends. She could overhear Sirius flirting with a couple of girls on the other side and rolled her eyes in irritation. Honestly! The giggling was grating on her nerves when her hand prickled uncomfortably. She gasped and stared at her hand with a frown. Understanding filled her and without even thinking she shifted into her animagus form. With a snarl of rage she took off into the woods.

"Er, guys, did you hear that?" Remus asked with a frown, cocking his head. The others shook their heads in confusion.

"Where are Hermione and Lily?" James asked with a frown. Remus paled and took off for the last spot they'd seen the girls. The other boys followed him without question.

The forest blurred under her paws and she acquired her destination quickly. Lily was being held by two Slytherin boys and there was another boy who was pointing a wand at her. Her clothes looked mussed, torn. Another snarl was ripped from Hermione's throat and she ran at the boy with the wand. He fell to the side and she grabbed his wand in her powerful jaws and snapped it. Then she turned to the two other boys and snarled again. They were staring at her, slack-jawed and one of them had wet himself. They ran, the cowards, and their stupid friend followed. Lily was shaking, it was shock most likely. Hermione purred at her, and head butted her hip. Lily started to gasp and cry. She fell to her knees and sat down. Hermione started to lick her face with her rough, raspy tongue and nuzzle Lily with her nose. Lily eventually put her arms around Hermione's neck and clung to her. She purred as loudly as she could to soothe her sister.

"Merlin's Balls!" Sirius choked out.

"Lily, come here!" James called urgently. The lioness turned her head to the boys and gave a distinct snort. Then she turned her attention back to Lily and head butted her again.

"No," Lily said firmly burying her face in the lioness' fur again. "She saved me. I'm not going to let you hurt her."

"Where's Hermione?" James demanded, looking around for his sister. Lily paled.

"I don't know," she admitted. "We were separated."

"What happened?" Remus asked gently, trying to move closer to Lily. The lioness looked at him with her golden eyes and then looked at Lily.

"It's okay," Lily said with a hiccup sob. "They're okay."

"We promise not to hurt her," James vowed, his face pale. The lioness seemed to think about that. She moved back slightly so that she was sitting up and then yawned showing off all of her very, very sharp teeth.

"Uh, I think she's saying we'd better keep that promise," Peter observed nervously.

"What happened?" Sirius asked Lily very gently, going down on one knee and looking into her pale face.

"It…it was Slytherin…" Lily began, and was backed up by a low snarl. The boys looked at the lioness.

"You don't like them either, eh?" Sirius asked with a grin. The lioness licked Lily's face one more time and then got to her feet. She looked at all of them for a moment and then she was gone, into the depths of the forest.

"I didn't know there was a lioness in the Forbidden Forest," Remus said thoughtfully.

"Well, I for one am particularly glad," Lily said somewhat unsteadily. James immediately came over to support her.

"Where is Hermione?" James asked again, a worried frown on his face.

"I…I'm not sure," Lily said with an identical worried frown. "I—I was looking for some golden trillium…"

"Lily?" Hermione's panicked voice could be heard some distance away. "Lily, come on, where are you?"

Relief flooded Lily at those words and she almost collapsed in James' arms. He swung her up gently and carried her carefully toward the sound of his sister's voice. When Hermione saw Lily in James' arms she gasped in horror and flung herself at Lily.

"Oh Lily! What happened to you?" Hermione asked miserably. "I should never have agreed to split up, this is all my fault."

"No! No!" Lily argued, struggling for a second in James' arms until he set her down carefully. Both girls embraced their heads close together and they started talking to one another so quietly that Remus could only pick up snatches of what was said.

"Did you get to talk to him?" He thought he heard Hermione whisper, and he saw Lily shake her head in a very slight motion

Then Remus could have sworn that Hermione started whispering something about Protean Charms, but that couldn't be right because that was a NEWT level spell. He thought that Hermione looked right at him, and frowned slightly and then she whispered something else and all he heard was a faint buzzing noise that irritated his sensitive hearing. He rubbed his head in irritation and moved away from the girls. The girls moved back toward the Herbology group with the boys in a loose honor guard around them.

HP/HG/HP

Hermione and Lily began to haunt the library, hoping to run into Severus. Usually the girls welcomed Remus' quiet company, but they started to avoid him a little and this made him very sad. He liked Hermione and Lily because they were kind, gentle, and caring and because both girls would fight tooth and nail over any perceived injustice. Remus had the strangest feeling sometimes that Hermione knew what he was, and liked him anyway. He ignored that feeling because it was so preposterous. He considered them to be friends, if not quite as close as his fellow marauders. The girls were also incredibly intelligent and had inadvertently helped the marauders pull off pranks by their superior spell knowledge, or a sometimes a random conversation he'd had with them. Remus was fairly certain that Hermione knew what her knowledge was being put to use for, and was amused. Lily most certainly did not. When Hermione suddenly sought him out one day, happiness spread through him and he smiled shyly at her.

"Remus, you're my friend, right?" Hermione asked him carefully in the library one afternoon in October.

"I like to think so," he replied a little stiffly. Being avoided had hurt him more than a fifteen year-old boy might like to admit. Hermione seemed to understand because she caught one of his hands with her own.

"I think of you as my friend," she said firmly. He nodded and his ears turned pink.

"Okay." He agreed quietly.

"Can you keep a secret from my brother?" Hermione asked him with a slight frown. Remus frowned back.

Uh, Hermione," he began uncertainly. Hermione watched him for a moment, and some sort of understanding flickered there.

"No, no that wouldn't be fair to you, would it. Okay then, I have to do this the hard way. Oh well, never mind then." Hermione said firmly with a nod for emphasis. She stood up abruptly to leave, but she bent and kissed his cheek on her way out of the library. Remus blushed. It was close enough to the full moon that he could smell her determination, along with the clean scent of lavender, and something else that he couldn't quite pinpoint.