Overall Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the persons, places, things, verbs, adjectives, etc. having to do with it. That is the exclusive property of the lucky Ms. Rowling and I just love to mess around in the magical world she has created.

This story came from me wondering why J.K. Rowling never provided Sirius with a significant other. At least, I never heard of him having one. Ginny Weasley being one of my favorite characters I wanted to put the two together. Add in a little time-travel to make sure there aren't too many creepy undertones and voila! A story was born.

Further Notes: The story will vacillate between Sirius's and Ginny's point of view. I don't think there will a POV from anyone else unless I just suddenly have an epiphany or something like that.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I am neither J.K. Rowling nor Harry Potter and so, own nothing. Well, except for some really fuzzy socks.

Chapter I: Escaping

Ginny was dreaming of Harry, which was typical. As the first boy she had ever loved, he showed up in her dreams quite a lot. They were going down to the Quidditch pitch to play the last game of the season. Harry walked beside her and Ginny knew, that strange way that you just know in dreams, that no one else was near. Harry turned to her suddenly. "Kiss me," he said. "For good luck." She willingly complied, only to have Harry pull back from her moments later with a rather disappointed look on his face "I thought you were Cho," he said while pulling away. "You cry too much Gin," Before she could retort that it was Cho, in fact, who cried way too much, Harry morphed into someone with long dark hair, and deep black eyes, as if he had taken a sudden draught of Polyjuice potion. The new boy leaned in to kiss her, and when their lips met, Ginny's heart stopped and her feet left the ground. Colors swam before her eyes. When they broke apart, she gazed into the depths of this mysterious boy's eyes. The rest of him was fairly hidden in shadow. "Ginny," he said to her. "You are perfect for me. Ginny….Ginevra….Ginevra Weasley wake up!" his voice getting higher with every repetition of her name.

Ginny sat bolt upright in bed to find Professor McGonagall's face above her. Though she didn't want to forget the strange dream that she had just experienced, she also knew that Professors did not make a habit of waking their students in the middle of night, and, therefore, that something serious had happened. She wondered if, somehow, the DA had been found out. If it was that prat, Zacharias Smith who had blabbed…."Professor—?" she started to ask. "Wait, Ginevra, I will explain when your brothers are also present. Follow me." Obediently, Ginny got out of bed, quickly grabbing a Muggle jacket that was hanging from her bedpost to ward off the chilly winter drafts and stuffing her wand into its pocket. She followed Professor McGonagall to the boys' dormitory for seventh years. She watched as Fred and George were woken. Had the atmosphere not been so serious and tense she would have giggled at Fred murmuring Katie Bell's name into his bedclothes. The professor gave her twin brothers no more information than she had gotten.

"What's going on Gin?" George asked blinking sleep from his eyes as they all followed Professor McGonagall down the staircase and out of the Gryffindor common room.

"Yeah, when a bloke imagines being woken up in the middle of the night by a female….Professor McGonagall is not the first one to come to mind."

"I know who you were imagining Fred." Ginny said with a grin as Fred's ears started to turn scarlet. "What was Katie doing in that dream of yours anyway? Wait, never mind, don't tell me. I do not want to know." Fred mumbled something about sisters in her direction as she turned to George. "McGonagall hasn't told me anything, she woke me up a few minutes before you two."

The professor turned to face the three redheads. "I am sorry that circumstances require me to be so evasive. I cannot tell you more than your father was severely injured tonight performing a task for the Order. If it were not for Harry, we might not have known Arthur was in danger, until it was too late."

"Hang on a second, how did Harry know?" George immediately said.

"He saw what happened to Arthur in a…dream. I cannot say more at the moment. It is imperative that we get you to Dumbledore's office and out of Hogwarts as soon as possible." The expression on McGonagall's face was one of extreme irritation that she saved just for Dolores Umbridge, so Ginny knew that the self-appointed 'Hogwarts High Inquisitor' would not like whatever was about to happen.

"But…Professor—" George tried to clarify what was said.

"Dumbledore will explain further. There is no time now," was the only answer he received.

The group quickly walked the rest of the way in silence. So many questions bobbed around in Ginny's head that she could barely focus on not running into various suits of armor. What exactly had happened to her dad and what was he doing that was so dangerous it had resulted in him being 'severely' injured? What exactly did 'severely injured' mean? If Harry had seen what had happened, You-Know-Who had probably been directly involved. Ginny shuddered to think of her father ever having to face He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Her own encounter with a mere memory of You-Know-Who's teenage self was enough to give her nightmares to this day. She would confront Harry, for sure. No matter that he was the boy she had been infatuated with for three years, he was going to give her and her brothers answers, and none of this evasive waffle that they had gotten out of Professor McGonagall.

They reached the headmaster's office in record time. Professor McGonagall spoke the words "Fizzing Whizbee" and they all clambered upon the slowly rising staircase. Ginny was impatient and felt like running headlong up the stairs, bursting into the office, and demanding answers. She stayed put for the moment. When the stairs reached their destination, McGonagall opened the door and gestured for them all to step inside. Ginny saw that Ron and Harry were already there. Her brother looked just as frightened as she was. She made eye contact with Harry and spoke to him.

"Harry—what's going on?" she asked him. Though she was frightened, her voice was quite steady. Having six brothers had taught her that tears never helped a bad situation, unless of course you were trying to get one of them punished by her mother, but that couldn't apply here. "Professor McGonagall says you saw Dad hurt—" Harry dropped her gaze and looked ashamed of himself. Before Ginny could process what this meant, Dumbledore cut in. "Your father has been injured in the course of his work for the Order of the Phoenix," he said. "He has been taken to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I am sending you back to Sirius's house, which is much more convenient for the hospital than the Burrow. You will meet your mother there."

Ginny wasn't listening to too much of what was said next. She was annoyed; Professor McGonagall said that Dumbledore would explain, but he had said barely anything other than what was already mentioned. At least, he had said nothing more that pertained to anything important like her father's condition or who had injured him. Ginny stood, contemplating the fact that they were being sent out of the school so that they could visit her father in the hospital. His injuries must have been extensive if he had to be admitted into St. Mungo's; their mother usually mended all of the scrapes her husband and various children got themselves into.

Dumbledore said some other things that she was probably supposed to pay attention to, but at this point Ginny was too tired, stressed, worried, and confused to care. She looked up when Dumbledore said, "Come here, then," and joined the others in convening around his desk. On which there was an old kettle.

"You have all used a Portkey before?" Dumbledore inquired. Ginny nodded with the others and stretched out her hand to touch the tip of the spout. The recent events, which at first had angered her, now left her feeling numb and hollow. For no particular reason, she looked up at Harry. Perhaps the moment's vulnerability had revived old feelings. In any case, while Dumbledore was counting, "One…two…" in the most minimal second before the headmaster said three, Ginny saw Harry's emerald irises flash red, and his mouth curl up in a half-animal snarl. Then there was "…three." There was the familiar yank in her midsection and then they were gone.

Seconds later Fred, George, Harry, Ron, and herself hit the floor of the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place. Ginny looked up to see Kreacher, Sirius's vindictive and bitter house-elf looking down at her.

"Back again, the blood traitor brats," he rasped. "Is it true their father's dying…?" Then she heard a deeper, clearer voice. "OUT!" it said and Kreacher scrambled away. Ginny and Kreacher had never gotten along well, which didn't bother Ginny very much because Kreacher never seemed to get along with anyone decent.

Then she saw Sirius. Until this moment, she hadn't given a thought to her earlier dream, but Sirius had an uncanny likeness to the previously unfamiliar boy. His hair was longer, he had stubble now, and his eyes were older and more tortured, but there was no doubt in Ginny's mind that the two were one and the same. She looked at him, trying not to obviously stare, and wondered how he could have ended up in her dreams.

"What's going on?" Sirius said helping Ginny up. She felt warmth in his touch, and her fingers tingled when he left them. "Phineas Nigellus said Arthur's been badly injured…" this brought Ginny out of her dream and her own thoughts, like waking up from her dream to McGonagall again. Her dad was in St. Mungo's, possibly dying, and all she was thinking about was some stupid dream.

"Ask Harry," Fred said with an accusatory undertone.

"Yeah, I want to hear this for myself," George seconded, mimicking his twin's way of speech.

Ginny turned to look at Harry also. She said nothing, but her facial expression stated what her brothers had already voiced. She crossed her arms and waited.

Harry explained what he had seen, how Voldemort's own snake had attacked Ginny's father and how Arthur had almost bled to death there, in the corridor. When he finished, Harry looked down at his feet; he seemed ashamed, or even guilty, for seeing what he had. Ginny wanted to tell him that without his vision, her father would be dead already. She looked at him for a long moment feeling sorry for him, and opened her mouth to say the words, but Fred said something first.

"Is Mum here?" he asked of Sirius. Sirius replied that she most likely was not aware yet that anything was amiss and explained how important it was to get them out of Hogwarts before Umbridge did something. Ginny felt terrible thinking of her parents separate from each other, one on death's door, the other not even knowing that the person she loved most in the world was in grievous danger. She couldn't stand it anymore. All thoughts of comforting Harry were pushed away in favor of a new plan.

"We've got to go to St. Mungo's," she said, soon noticing that nobody would be able to take the cold, winter journey in their pajamas. She hated to impose on Sirius any more, but this was an emergency. "Sirius, can you lend us cloaks or anything—?"

"Hang on, you can't go tearing off to St. Mungo's!" he replied. Ginny couldn't believe it; she saw no reason that she shouldn't be at her father's bedside right now. Her twin brothers felt the same and voiced their opinions.

"How are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even let his wife know?" Sirius threw the logic in their faces like a cold bucket of water.

"What does it matter?" said George, physically pacing, trying to let off his frustration.

"It matters because we don't want to draw attention to the fact that Harry is having visions of things that are happening hundreds of miles away," Sirius said, becoming just as frustrated as George. "Have you any idea what the Ministry would make of that information?"

Ginny didn't give a dancing dirigible plum about what the Ministry would make of that information at the moment, but obviously Sirius did. She saw a solution that seemed obvious; she wondered why no one else had thought of it.

"Somebody else could have told us…We could have heard it somewhere other than Harry…." Sirius easily shot down her answer, to her disappointment. He said some things like her dad knew what he was getting into, maybe something about how the Order was more important than seeing their father, something like that. She had stopped listening once Sirius made it clear they weren't going to visit Arthur. She wasn't allowed to see her father. Maybe he was dying, how would she know? She wasn't there.

Ginny looked around the room, found the nearest chair, and all but collapsed into it. She barely registered when Fred and George sat on either side of her, thinking back to the times when her family could solve any problem. If someone were to tease her, she'd just call one of her brothers to beat him up. If it were one of her brothers doing the teasing, she'd just call her mum or dad to deal with them. In many instances, Ginny had not even needed her parents' or brothers' help, as she was able to deal with dilemmas from an early age. Now her father was probably dead or close to it and apparently the only thing everyone could do was stay put and wait. When had the problems gotten so large? Who was going to make this one disappear?

Ginny heard Sirius say Accio Butterbeer, no doubt in an attempt to cheer them up. Drinking something that her dad almost always had when he came home from work, brought up other memories of him that threatened tears. And tears were unacceptable. As a distraction, she allowed her thoughts to wander—or rather race—to the boy in her dream once again. Since it had been established that he and Sirius were the same person, the boy she had dreamed about would have to be a younger version of Sirius, perhaps even when Sirius was still at Hogwarts. But how had she known what Sirius looked like back then? She had never seen a photo, never even heard a description of him from when he was young.

Ginny thought about her time at 12 Grimmauld Place over the summer holidays. She couldn't remember really noticing Sirius, or even speaking to him much. She didn't have any feelings for him other than as Harry's godfather. No feelings at all, essentially. So why had she dreamed about him kissing her…and why had it been the absolute best kiss of her life? It was all quite confusing and she soon found her thoughts turning, inevitably, back towards her father. She started to remember things he did, his personal habits. Every scrape of hers that he mended, all his Muggle eccentricities, many of which she shared, were called into memory one by one. She suddenly wondered when the last time was that she had said 'I love you' to him. Dear Merlin, she couldn't remember! Her father was dying and he didn't know that his only daughter loved him.

In the back of her mind, Ginny knew that this was ridiculous, her father knew that she loved him, even if she hadn't told him recently. However, the gloomy atmosphere and high tension of 12 Grimmauld Place were getting to her. She was going to start crying soon and she did not want to do that in front of other people, especially in front of Harry. Not that she cared what Harry thought of her. She eased her chair slightly behind Fred and George on either side of her, and slipped up the back stairs without even noticing Sirius's eyes following her.

Now that no one was around the tears gathered thickly at the corners of her eyes. Ginny struggled to keep them in until she found a room in which she could close the door. She ran down a corridor with which she was unfamiliar and opened the first door that she encountered. "Alohamora."

She took a few steps into the room, and then sank to the floor. Quiet sobs racked her body with a sort of gentle, but unrelenting force. She allowed memories of her father to enter her mind, good and bad, embarrassing and hilarious. She hung onto every moment she had had with him. Then she allowed herself to imagine life without him, knowing from experience that once she had released all of the grief and tears here, it would be easier to withhold them in front of others. First she imagined all of her family without her father—Ron, Fred and George, Percy, Bill, Charlie…her mother. Everyone would be devastated. The family would seem like many separate individuals rather than a single unit without their strong center. Then she imagined his funeral. After that, going back to Hogwarts, enduring the whispers and stares. Doing homework, playing Quidditch, taking her O., all while her father was not present. Each subsequent thought made her cry harder and harder, louder and louder, until she feared that she would be heard and quieted down.

After a while, it seemed she had run out of tears, she lay on the ground, just breathing and feeling. Her thoughts turned to the fact that her father was alive right now and that she, nor any of her siblings, maybe not even her mother, was near him. She again grew angry with Sirius for daring to keep them apart. She stood up, resolving to give him a piece of her mind, Molly Weasley style though she knew that it was likely to do little good, when she looked around the room for the first time and was surprised.

The room was bathed in a soft, gold light. Intricately carved mahogany book shelves lined the entire circular room, saving the one space that allowed for the door. The room was not very wide, but extremely tall—taller, it seemed, than 12 Grimmauld Place itself. On each and every bookcase there were, instead of books, dozens upon dozens of time turners. Each were a different size—some no bigger than Ginny's pinky fingernail, some a whole meter tall—but all were a calming, golden color. Each hourglass had a label pasted to the shelf underneath it. Each label had one date and place written on it. Ginny was fascinated. Each time turner had sands that floated in their glasses, independent of gravity. Ginny reached out and picked up the one nearest to her whose label said 12 Grimmauld Place: 31 August, 1981, when she heard the door being opened. She chastised herself for not magically sealing the door, sure that it was one of her brothers, looking for her.

She turned and looked behind her. It was Sirius. Her anger at him temporarily forgotton due to curiosity, she asked, "What are these? They look like time turners but they're different in a bunch of little ways"

"Those are very like time turners," Sirius replied. "They were created specifically for auror use when Voldemort started coming into power for the first time."

"What were they for?" Ginny asked.

"Each time turner is programmed to take one back in time to a specific starting point so that said person can alter an event in order to ensure something in the future doesn't happen. Those are the dates specified on the labels."

"Why would someone need to go back to a specific point? I mean, why couldn't they just use a regular time turner for that?"

"Well, for one, the farther you go back in time with regular time turners, the more unstable the magic becomes. So no one is able to go back to more than about one year without encountering dangerous and unpredictable consequences. They were created for trustworthy students taking extra classes, not auror missions. These time turners use the magicians' own magic to function, not its own reserves. There are a few other reasons, but that's the main one."

"So, what are these super-special, auror time-turners doing at Grimmauld Place?" Ginny inquired, knowing better than to call it Sirius's house.

"Well, everyone had pretty much forgotten about these little devices," Sirius said, stepping closer to Ginny. "They were discontinued soon after they were created, because the Ministry's ethics committee decided—"

"Wait, sorry, but the Ministry has an ethics committee?" Ginny interrupted. Sirius chuckled, and Ginny frowned. Her question had been legitimate. Sirius stopped laughing, though he was still grinning from ear to ear. It annoyed Ginny even more how much she noticed his smile.

"Yes, well, it's quite small and is rarely used, but it has a surprising amount of power the few times the members do come together and decide something. Anyway, the ethics committee decided that wizards were bound to abuse anything with that type of power and all of the work should be eradicated immediately—memories erased, time turners smashed, everything. However, the time-turners were never destroyed. The magic had been performed too well for the Ministry's pride to allow them to go. The Minister of Magic spread the word that they had all been smashed, but in fact, they were kept hidden deep in the bowels of the Ministry's headquarters in London. The aurors consented to have their memories wiped of the research and magic that contributed to their inventions, believing them to be truly dangerous. Only three people know that these time-turners weren't actually destroyed."

"Four, now" Ginny interjected. Sirius smiled again.

"Right you are. One of them, naturally, is Dumbledore, and when Harry came back from his encounter with Voldemort last year, proclaiming that You-Know-Who was back he anticipated that Fudge, and therefore the entire Ministry, would be less than co-operative. There was also the high risk that Voldemort would take control of the Ministry, find out about these time-turners, and take steps to make sure some very important things would not happen. While he was still head Mugwump, he took the entire stock of these and hid them at Hogwarts for a couple of months, then hid them here at the start of the term."

"Hmmmmm…and I suppose now is when you tell me not to get any ideas to go and try one, that it's too dangerous?" Ginny facetiously stated.

"Nooooo…This is the part where I'm going to tell you to think hard about it, consider the consequences, then do what you think is right. In fact, don't even do that. Do what you feel." Sirius smiled again at Ginny's surprised expression.

Ginny looked at Sirius, searched his eyes for any sign that he was taking the mickey. She saw in his deep eyes that he was not; apparently he really did trust her judgment in whatever she did. Ginny would have found this odd since the two could not have exchanged more than a handful of words in the short time that they knew each other, if she had not been busy trying to figure out that other thing she saw in his eyes—some deep emotion that he was hiding, guarding. She looked at him for a while, for such a long time that it would have been awkward with anyone else; with Sirius, however, it seemed natural, comfortable.

"I can't go back," Ginny said after the pause. "I can't sit around waiting for news. I need to get away right now. I think…I think this would be best. I'll lose it again if I don't leave and…"

"Hey, it's okay. It's fine," Sirius said with a slight, crooked smile that sent a trembling straight to her mid-section. "See you when you get back Ginevra." He took another step forward, hesitated, then caressed her face once with his hand. His palm covered over half of her face. Ginny leaned into it comfortably; her face fit there naturally. She felt as if she could stay with her face in his hand forever, but the moment ended too soon. Sirius turned abruptly with his eyes unreadable, walked out of the circular room, and shut the door behind him.

Ginny watched him go. She didn't allow herself to contemplate the meaning of what Sirius had just done. She didn't give permission for her brain to analyze her extremely rapid heartbeat and breathing. She, as usual, did not let herself think about what she was going to do or its consequences. She took a deep breath, drew the chain of the oh-so-special time-turner about her neck, and flipped it around once. There was a flash of light, and then Ginny was gone.