the_debt_of_time

The two would sit beside one another in Ancient Runes. Often, in the middle of
class with their heads buried in a book of translation texts, Remus would reach over to take
Mia's hand and smile, lacing their fingers together. She would breathe in deep and let the
feeling of calm that he exuded wash over her; somehow it made her feel that putting up
with James was all worth it.
It was especially worth it the morning of the fourth of October.
"Just don't drink the pumpkin juice, and you'll be fine, Lily," Mia whispered.
"How did you even slip the potion into the whole batch?" Lily asked as the two girls
sat at the Gryffindor table, waiting for the rest of the student body to arrive for breakfast.
"I'm friendly with the house-elves." Mia grinned, happy to know that in this timeline
she was able to make peace with the small creatures, considering the elves at Hogwarts in
the future were utterly terrified of her and her knitting habits.
"You sure it's going to work? It's brilliant, but you're going to get in trouble for it
too." Lily eyed the High Table with a raised brow. "I'm not one to promote breaking the
rules, but if you want Slughorn to give you credit for this, you'll have to accept responsibility
for it."
"As long as I can still go to Hogsmeade when this is over with, I'll take whatever
punishment is meted out," Mia said, beaming excitedly.
One by one, students filled the Great Hall, taking their seats at the tables. Slowly,
in various stages of exhaustion, the four Marauders joined Lily and Mia. Peter, James, and
Sirius looked worse for wear, but since they were in a post-full moon week, Remus was
looking better and better every day.
"Morning, boys." Mia smiled brightly as she went into her usual routine of serving
a plate for Remus while he simultaneously fixed her tea and porridge. "What are you all so
exhausted from?"
She had assumed they were up late practising their Animagus transformations. She
had been doing the same thing, though in the privacy of her dorm room seeing as she was
only in the early stages of meditations to find out what her Animagus form would be.
"Up late snogging," Sirius lied, smirking at her while Mia rolled her eyes.
A month ago, she would have been annoyed by his typical behaviour, but she was
already long over it. Sirius had fallen swiftly into confirming all the rumours about his bad
reputation to be true. His reasoning was that he might as well do the things he was being