Summary:
Hermione is not known as the brightest witch of her age for nothing, so, who else but her could possibly come up with a spell to bring Harry's godfather back to the living?
Some time and a minor surgery on Hermione's part later, Sirius has taken on the job of 'brightening up' Hermione's 'dull' life. That witch is clearly missing something, and Sirius is quick to figure out what it is: Love! So in order to help the woman who saved his life, he tries to bring the latter out of her shell and make her see 'all the fun' she is missing out on.
But will his attempts to set her up with some suitable guy develop into something much more than either of them had bargained for?
On a short note, don't mistake the title. I personally love books and I did not intend to anyhow belittle their value. However, there will be a chapter later on in the story that will explain what the title deprived from.
Disclaimer(for the whole story): I do not own any rights concerning Harry Potter. If I did, the seventh book wouldn't have had that sappy, cliché ending;)
Harry was pacing in front of the veil nervously, all the time staring at his best friend.
Hermione was at least as nervous as him. She fervently hoped it was going to work, it had to work, she wouldn't be able to stand Harry's look if she didn't succeed.
Sure, he would tell her that it wasn't her fault, but she would still be able to see the disappointment lingering in his eyes and she wasn't sure whether she would be able to take that.
Well, one thing was certain, if she wasn't going to concentrate, there would be no way she'd ever succeed.
Slowly, Hermione calmed down her breath and focused. She had put so much effort into this, had used years of study to come up with a spell that just might be working. Might be - that was the problem that was getting to her, what if it didn't work after all? How could she foresee whether a spell was going to work, when it had never been tested before, when she had created that very spell herself?
Yes, she had created a few minor spells herself before, but nothing like this. This spell was in a different league, this was talking about different dimensions and the possibility of failure frightened her more than she cared to admit even to herself.
Hermione never really admitted to the fact that books only got you so far. Yet she knew that the crucial part of inventing spells was not the theoretical part, the research and all that stuff. The important part was the testing, seeing whether it would work. And that's what made it all the worse that there had been no way for her to test this spell on anything else before, since there wasn't any magical object that came even close to resembling the veil. For all she knew, her spell could very likely destroy the veil and therefore kill Sirius at the last.
For this was the only thing she was certain about, Sirius Black was not dead, but not quite alive either. She had spent many, many hours on studying whatever little information she could gather about the veil. Whilst there hadn't been much information on the subject, many theories stated that the person inside was not dead, would not be dead for 21 years until he fell through the veil. Yet no one had ever succeeded in bringing back one who had fallen through the veil. And since Sirius had been the first one in over a century to fall through it, no one really bothered to study it thoroughly. No one that is but Hermione. She had, and she believed to have found a way – or so she hoped.
Taking another calming breath, she turned her gaze to Harry: "Ready?", she asked.
Harry just nodded in reply. It had been 17 years since Sirius had fallen through the veil, 17 years in which he had believed to have lost his godfather. And now Hermione might just have found a way to bring him back to him. He knew, he shouldn't be getting his hopes up and yet he did. Hermione wasn't called the brightest witch of her age - even of the last millennium - for nothing. She truly was brilliant and if anyone was able to bring Sirius back, he knew it was her.
Hermione knew how much Harry trusted in her abilities, how all of them did, really. This was the very reason she had only brought Harry here today, had only told him and had made him swear to her that he wouldn't tell anyone else. They all trusted in her abilities so much, she didn't want to disappoint any of them.
Yet she knew that Harry would have to be there, he would be the very person Sirius would want to see once he woke up. If he woke up, that is.
But at the end of the day, she knew that if she failed, the problem wouldn't be for her to live with Harry, no, the problem would be that she would have to live with herself.
Hermione took one last calming breath. It was now or never. She focused and focused only on the veil. Her wand was pointing at the veil, and the hands that had been shaking before now remained calm in the air.
She started mumbling words, loads of words, and moving her wand in peculiar ways. It was a very difficult spell indeed.
All the doubts from before were gone, had left nothing but a vague echo in the corner of her mind. For there are two things crucial to spell-casting: One of them is the strength of will, the wish for the spell to actually come true; the second is the steadfast belief, the conviction that the spell is going to work.
She had been standing in the very same position for about half an hour, unaware of her surroundings, unaware of Harry's anxious stare, unaware of anything but the veil.
There, she was done. That very moment all her nervousness came back in a rush. Had it worked? She stared at the veil – and nothing happened.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing!
Hermione swallowed hard, she knew there had been a chance of this all being in vain, but still… At least, something could have happened, anything, really.
She continued to stare at the veil in disbelief, not quite ready to admit to her failure, when suddenly a bright silver light started to erupt from veil and spread all around. Then were was one loud burst and it all exploded.
For a moment, she couldn't help it but feel relieved, at least something had happened after all. Then the reality of the scene hit her: What had she done? She had just destroyed Sirius' last refuge - and Harry's last shred of hope.
Suddenly there in the midst of all the sherds Sirius' body appeared. He looked exactly the way he had looked when he had fallen through the veil. Did that mean they were just witnessing his death?
But no, he was – BREATHING!
"Harry, look!" Hermione cried out in joy, tears of relief washing down her face, just when Sirius slowly started to open his eyes.
"Where am I?", asked Sirius, taking in his environment curiously. His voice sounded rusty, like a person who hadn't talked in ages. "It feels like I've slept forever!"
Hermione had to chuckle slightly, hysterically. His comment hadn't been as wrong as he had thought.
Harry had meanwhile recovered from the sudden shock and ran over to his godfather's side. "Sirius", cried Harry. "It's so good to see you again!"
"Na-na, my boy", said Sirius. "It's not like we didn't see one another just a few weeks back." Sirius then looked up at Harry, startled. "Bloody hell, what happened? Did you take an aging potion or something?"
"Not exactly, no", answered Harry. "Listen, it's hard to explain, but, you fell through this veil and.."
"That's right", Sirius interrupted him. "We were battling, what happened. Are you alright? Is everyone alright?"
Neither Harry nor Hermione knew what to say at first. "Well, we won that battle, but you, you fell through this veil, and we all believed you to be dead", Harry finally revealed.
Sirius just stared at his godson, hoping that all of this would turn out to be some sick joke, but glancing into Harry's sincere-looking eyes, he knew that it wasn't.
"What happened then?", he finally croaked out.
"It's a long story", Harry said sadly. "But – we basically won the final battle and Voldemort is gone."
"Basically?", Sirius picked up his godson's careful wording.
"There were quite a few casualties along the way", Harry continued. "That was 17 years ago."
17 years? Sirius was too stunned to continue. Was his godson actually trying to tell him that he had missed out on 17 years of his life? And the casualties? 'Who?', he wanted to ask , wanted to scream out, but was too afraid of the answers.
Then he picked up on something else. "You all thought I was dead." It was more of a question than a statement.
"Well, most of us did. Hermione here didn't", Harry said, pointing to the witch in the corner. Sirius briefly looked up to meet her gaze, not having noticed her before.
If there had still been some doubts left, whether this wasn't anything but a sick joke, they were gone once he had looked at Hermione. She, too, had aged and looked at him with worried, yet sincere eyes.
"You see, she found a way to somehow revive you, don't ask me for the details, I have absolutely no idea, but I'm sure she'll explain it to you later, that is, if you want her to, I mean, .."
"Harry", Hermione interjected softly, effectively ending the wizard's rambling.
"Right", Harry mumbled, trying his best to collect himself. Sirius, meanwhile, was still to shocked to say anything.
"I know that this is probably a lot to take in, and it'll take a lot of time to explain it all to you. But the main thing is that you're alive and healthy, and back with us", Hermione - always the voice of reason - addressed Sirius, when neither of the two men in the room had anything more to say.
"You're right", Harry agreed. "I'm so glad to have you back, Sirius!"
"And I'm glad to be back, I suppose", Sirius finally said. "And it's good to see that you're still up and about." With that, he embraced Harry in a tight hug. Both of the men were sporting some treacherous tears, and Hermione discreetly turned away, to give them some privacy.
"The casualties?", Sirius finally uttered the dreaded question.
"I – We better explain that to you back at my place" Harry said meekly, got up and stretched out his hand to help Sirius up..
Sirius nodded grimly but ignored the help Harry was offering him and got up on his own.
"Alright, where shall we go then?", he asked.
"Potter Manor."