Story: A Simple Blast to the Past
Author: S.S.Harry
Chapter 1 Gin P.O.V
The tall sandy haired man sweats profusely as he physically wrenches on the frame of the howling portrait. His muscles can be seen straining and bulging as he finally with an almighty groan forces the frame off with a sickening crunch. I cringe at the sound, a sound I'm very familiar with from playing quidditch with my brothers- the sound of bones breaking. The portrait begins to cackle madly as he drops it on the floor and he observes his hand for a minute, letting out a nervous, almost cynical, laugh etched with pain. "Aye Sirius," the sandy haired man says smiling. He holds up the portrait with what I guessed was his good hand and tosses it at a dark haired man sitting in the corner. "For your memories," he says smiling.
Sirius comes from the darkened corner, the shadows covering his face making him look like a ghost. He observes the still screeching painting and my ears are wringing for the 3rd day in a row from the vile wails of hatred. Lifting the portrait slowly, almost tenderly, he tosses it into the fireplace. "SCUM! BLOOD TRAITORS! OUT! AWAY FROM MY HUMBLE HOME! AWAY MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD-" are the last words bellowed from the portrait of Mrs. Black as it shrivels and blackens; a great contrast to the warm merry fire within. As we stare into the flames, a look of silent triumph and determination etches itself across the now aging face of Sirius Black.
Standing at the staircase landing, a bushy haired woman clicks her tongue and scribbles away on a book of heavy parchment. "And there; that's one more task done!" She says cheerily. "Damn it Hermione!" Sirius says, startled, and the sandy haired man returns to reality and begins to swear rather colorfully. I look at his hand and 3 of his four fingers are sticking out at odd angles, one with bone breaking the skin. "Mr. Lupin sir, would you like me to have a look at that?" Hermione inquires; I can feel my skin crawl from the blatant painfulness of the wound. "No need for such a fuss, Hermione," He says smiling, "Observe." He held out broken hand and using the other he began to crack the protruding digits back into place. I shuddered visibly, making him smile more. "Come here girls," he says gesturing at Hermione and I. We walk towards him and he points at the point where the skin had broken to show it healing. "Lycanthropy has its benefits," I remark, eyes wide. "Very much so," Lupin agrees grimly. Sirius, as if dazed, walks towards the now empty space the portrait had occupied.
Paying me no notice, I quietly follow the statuesque figure's gaze. Apparently, the portrait had been protecting a large wooden door. As I look away towards Sirius, I see a look of deep thought, followed by a small smile and then a look of sadness. I make no mind of this behavior, as Sirius often behaves in such a way. Sirius is after all a man of many experiences. Having felt nothing but sadness due to Dementors for over a decade, I'd personally concluded that a man of his experience would embrace all feelings available to him, because for over a decade, he was allowed to feel nothing but sorrow and vengeance. Concluding that musing will not get the house work done, I reach for the doorknob.
"We'll explore that tomorrow, no need to rush," Sirius says quickly, I could feel a sense of dread in his voice, and I lower my hand in disappointedly. This house has many memories for Sirius, and most those memories are bad. "Surely, it would be better to get it done and over with, would it not?" Hermione offers, "If you two are not up to it Ginny and I could-" "Absolutely not," Remus growls, "We're not letting you two down there alone. God only know what would happen!" Sirius nodded in agreement. Hermione scowls at him and continues writing on her parchment. "Fine; tomorrow then," She says sharply.
Since New Years, Sirius Black has not been himself. Several weeks of Sirius showering myself with his never ending cloud of paranoia have driven me mad. I understand that we live in troubled times, the Dark Lord has returned, and now more than ever, we are all working relentlessly to prepare for war; but the level of protection I have rivals that of Harry Potter, my school mate whom the Dark Lord has tried to take the life of many times before. I am not allowed to fly my broom; I cannot even go to the bathroom by myself! Hermione has also suffered; Remus gives her the exact same attitude. Sirius and Remus say that we mustn't separate from other people at any point in time. Consequently, Hermione and I have become very close to avoid having the boys follow us to the lavatory.
In the kitchen, I was situated between Sirius and Hermione; Hermione sat between Remus and I. This had become the norm, Sirius and Remus acted as if they were glued to us, and were making sure that we were glued to one another. As dinner began and everyone began eating the delicious dishes that my mother had prepared for us, my twin brothers, Fred and George, did not find their meals interesting enough. Fred instinctively begins to plaster mashed potatoes on the table and trace his name as well as writing crude phrases and profanities. "Fred Weasley!" Mum scolds him and tosses a well aimed fork in his direction. Fred jumps in surprise causing mashed potatoes hit Harry's spectacles. I look between then uninterestedly as Fred and Harry begin to laugh. Harry continues laughing and spoons creamed corn on his spoon. As I was reach for more candied carrots, Harry flicks the spoon's contents at Fred. The creamed corn lands in my hair, and I imagine the yellow and sickly white oddly contrasts vividly to the bright red shade.
Remus is seen chuckling under his breath. "Oh, so you find that funny?" Hermione says mocking his laughter. Grabbing her glass of chilled lemonade, she poured it on his lap. He begins to jump up and down as ice from it melts ion his pants. "Cold; holy freaking Merlin its cold!" he proclaims jumping and attempting to brush it off of his pants. Sirius barks with laughter watching his childhood friend hop around like he's on fire. Remus takes the first thing he can reach, a bowl of melting butter, and dumps it on Sirius' head. Sirius glowers, taking much pride in caring for his hair.
"Oh be still, this is no way to behave at-" mum begins say before carrots splatter in her face; dad winks at her cheekily holding up his own spoon. Her dumbfounded look then changed into a smile as she joins in the unbranded food fight. The rest of the meal was spent throwing food at one another until our arms were sore from the exercise. As we all rise to retire for the night, mum bellows "Wait a minute Fred Weasley!" Fred freezes with his shoulder sagging slightly. "Since you started tonight's events, you can clean the kitchen, the muggle way. Woes betide you if I find the smallest particle of anything left. When you're done you can retire for the night."
Later that night, everyone is sleeping heavily, and I stare out the dirty window at the stars. Restless, I creep from the room. I cannot sleep and I am more than tempted to explore what lies behind that door alone. I grab a candle and light it before opening my door to the outer darkness. Opening the door where the portrait had been, I hold the candle out and see that the door descends a distance which I cannot determine. I walk quietly down the many old stairs using my collar of my pajamas to filter the decrepit air. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I find myself in a circular room full of many shelves. I looked at their contents in awe, but I am afraid to touch anything. Some things were slimy bugs in some preservation potions. At the end of this room, there was another door. Opening it, I find more stairs...
Hermione's P.O.V
Suddenly starting I stare into the darkness of the room. Something doesn't feel right and my heart races and my skin crawls as if a thousand invisible ants were making their way from my mouth through the rest of my body. I decide to see whether Ginny has felt anything. Looking towards her bed, I rub my eyes to make sure I am seeing properly. Empty! I think about running off to look for her, but I know I should wake an adult. I run to Remus' room and rap at the door. As he opens it his he looks confused and half-sleep. "Hermione, it's midnight," he says with a yawn. His look of exhaustion soon changed to a look of anger and he bears down on me. "Why are you up by yourself in the middle of the night, leaving yourself and Ginny open for danger?" he growls.
Remus is always feral at night, and for a minute I feel nothing but fear and excitement. The raw emotion and power coming from the man reminds me of earlier in the day when he completely disregarded the feelings of pain and strain of his muscles while he ripped Mrs. Black's portrait away. "She's gone. I don't know where she went, but I have an idea," I say meekly. Remus suddenly looks worried, for once I begin to appreciate his overly obsessive paranoia towards Ginny and I. He grabs my hand and drags me with him to Sirius' room, the grip on my hand almost breaks my fingers, yet I know he is not trying. Remus knocks on the door several times, but no avail; Sirius doesn't answer. "Sirius, Ginny went in the door by herself." Remus said. Sirius stops pretending to be asleep and jumps, wand ready and runs down the stairs. I begin to question whether worrying them was truly necessary.
We run down the stairs behind the door, the smell of the room combined with my current fear makes me feel sick to my stomach. We find nothing; Ginny is not there. Entering the door at the other end of the room, we head down the next flight of stairs. Ginny is there, skipping across the room as if she has no cares. The two men sigh in relief. 'Hermione help me' said a small voice in my head. It sounded like Ginny's voice. 'Help me. It put a happiness charm on me. If you don't say the counter curse, I'll be stuck this way' it said. "Hey!" I snapped getting the bemused men's attention. They looked at me questioningly. "Do either of you know a counter curse for a happiness charm that is in the act of making a person eternally happy? Because if you don't this is Ginny for better or for worse." I informed them. Remus approaches Ginny and said the counter curse. She looks dazed and then comes to. As she blinks in realization, she returns the looks of the angry faces surrounding her with fear.
Luckily for Ginny, we're all busy gathering their things the next day. Winter holidays are over and we're distracted making sure we don't forget anything important. Ginny and I go to our secret box hidden in a rip in my mattress, and get our most prized possession. It's a photo album that records all of our friends and family. From baby pictures, to how they look at that moment- this is the only book you'd find those pictures in. The book is 1/2 a foot-long and the cover is layered with red and gold velvet. In beautiful silver writing it says 'Ginny and Hermione's sweet memories.' It is my turn to take care of it; I put it gently in my bag and went to breakfast.
Breakfast is uneventful, well as uneventful, or at least as uneventful as possible with Fred and George around. Up against Ronald and the other boys I win a pancake eating contest. I'm shocked I've beaten Ron, the greatest pig in all of Europe. "Mione, you'll destroy your wonderful figure if you continue to eat like this," Ginny warned me as I finished my 20th pancake. I shrug, never having cared about my shape. I'm curvy, not skinny like most girls, and it made clothes shopping horrible. My mother had found a great conditioner that smoothes my hair, which was much longer than I had originally known.
Ginny also is an excellent looking girl. She has long deep red hair and constellations on her cheeks. She is more lanky like Ron, but when her eyes light up and she smiles, it is more beautiful to me than any flying curve ever will be…
GINNY P.O.V.:
"Fred, George, your turn," Mum says as the boys ready themselves to go through the barrier. They walked casually into platform 9-and-three-quarters. "Now you girls," She said. I felt nervous as I clutched a small silver watch I had found in the dungeon the night before. Even in the dark it sparkled beautifully and it is too precious to leave in such a horrid place. Several detection spells later, I found no black magic or traces of evil or hexes on it, so I decided to keep it. Counting to three, we speed through the barrier.
I begin to feel these violent vibrations and I almost lost control of the cart. Instinctively I throw the watch away from me and rush out of the barrier as fast as my legs will let me. Breathing heavily I raise myself to look for Hermione. Behind me I hear a crash and a wail of shock. Recognizing Hermione's voice, I go to help her. The cart had fallen on her leg and I am struggling trying to lift the cart off of her. "Ah, Damsel in distress, I'll help," says a boy with a cheeky grin and long dark hair. "Goor help me get this thing off-" "Oy Moony!" he interrupts. A pale sandy haired boy with gold rimmed glasses appears out of a compartment with an irritated look on his face.. "Help me with this thing," the dark haired one says lazily. The sandy haired one, seeing the dark haired boy make no move to help him, lifts the cart effortlessly, tilting it back onto it's wheels. Grabbing the trunk, I place it in a compartment and the boy leaves. "Hey babe need any help?" the dark haired boy offers. "No thanks," I say looking at him icily. No one calls me babe, and he didn't help the last time. I flip my hair, ignoring him and go to help Hermione to her feet.
She supports herself by leaning on my shoulder; her leg is broken. Hunting for a compartment, we find that all of them were full except for one, where the dark haired boy and his bespectacled friend are sitting. I notice that Harry is sitting with them, but Ron is not. "Mind if we sit in here? Everything else is full," I said. Harry nods and gestures at a seat near him. I notice that Harry seems to not even acknowledge that Hermione is in pain, but exhausted, I sit down with relief. "So what's your name beautiful?" Harry asks. I look at him confused. "What?" I stutter. "Ah, quiet type." The black haired one says winking. "I'll break the ice then, I'm Sirius Black, this stud here hidden behind an evil book is Remus Lupin, this one here is Peter Pettigrew, and last but not least, the cream of the crop, the big man, the leader, the brilliant, watch out ladies guy hates to sleep alone, Jaaaaaaaaaames Pooooooooooter!" hearing this, my vision begins to swim and I faint.