A Note- You know the truth better accept it- I can't afford Harry Potter

Hermione saw Voldemort come out of the clearing with his Death eaters and Hagrid carrying a body; Harry's body.

"No," she whispered,

"NO! NO! HARRY!"

"Ariadne! Ariadne!" Lily was shaking her softly, she saw a piece of parchment fall down but ignored it for the moment.

"Ariadne calm down!"

Now Alice, Hestia and Marlene had grouped around Hermione or Ariadne's bed trying to control her screaming and thrashing before she woke the whole of Gryffindor tower.

Ariadne woke up at last and looking weakly at Lily she exclaimed "Ginny! Harry he-he Harry's d-dead." she spoke, each word and pause covered with shuddering breaths.

"Ariadne," Lily spoke, her voice filled to the brim with concern,

"Who are Harry and Ginny?"

Hermione's eyes snapped open as she came to her senses, "No one, Lily you should stop worrying about me without no reason. Same for you three." she gestured at Alice, Hestia and Marlene. She knew she would need to tell them, even if the story was altered greatly.

She then yanked down her bed hangings and again took solace in whispering to the photo of the DA under wand light, pretending the happy faces were by her side laughing at some joke or training determinedly, sweat trickling from their faces. Colin had given them to her so that she could give them to Harry but she forgotten all about them. Now Colin was dead too, she thought. To her everyone was dead.

Lily them again noticed to parchment near her bed, she took it it and realised it as a beautiful quill portrait of a couple walking hand in hand. The man was long nosed, tall and freckled. The woman looked intelligent rather than attractive with a strong jaw and sparkling, vivacious eyes and waist length hair which had a bushy look. It took her a minute to realize that it was Ariadne. She looked at her bed hangings and thought of her present appearance, her face was gaunt and had a defeated look, her eyes were shell-shocked and would betray all her pain her hair were bushy but quite lank and some hairs were turning grey.

Lily simply kept it in her bedside drawer, not knowing what else to do.

The following morning, she woke up early, the pain in her legs worsening by the minute when a huge parcel filled with potions and powders came to her notice. It was from Poppy for there was a note attached in her neat, evenly-spaced handwriting telling her about the potions and she had even created a time table for her which told her to visit her each Friday in her office for examination of her rapidly detoriating health and to replenish her stock of potions. She drank the morning dose of potions and carefully, put the rest in her pouch for lunch and took her crutches out for the first day at Hogwarts. Real fun.

She got ready as quickly as she could and tried to get out of the dorms as early as possible for the later she would be, the lesser the chance was there to reach for breakfast without being stared at.

And at last when she arrived; expecting the tables to be abandoned she found herself greeted by none other than...

"Hello Ariadne! Sorry about last night, it was an accident you know."Sirius Black brandished his hand out for at that exclamation Hermione had fallen down in a heap on the floor, her crutches askew.

The other marauders had just arrived to the table carrying a small packet of powder whose purpose was probably for some prank. All she knew was that she would never take the hand of Sirius Orion Black; ever.

She harrumphed and looked around to see the rest of the marauders staring in shock at Sirius. Then looked as though a body bind had been placed upon them except that their mouths were hanging open.

"I cannot lie here all day you know! Someone, heck anyone except Sirius Black help me up!" Hermione pleaded desperately waving her hands in the air.

She was really annoyed and wanted to tell him that she couldn't be friends with anyone except Lily, but was too angry to say so. At that very moment Lily descended down and gave her a hand.

Murmuring thanks Hermione went towards Remus and asked,

" What were you staring at Sirius for?"" Sirius apologized; He never does that."

That was all that came out of the ill and fragile looking boy's mouth. Remus looked almost the same as she had known him except that his face was not marred with lines and his hair was a sandy brown, though flecks of grey were beginning to surface. She hadn't noticed that at all.

She couldn't even care less about why Sirius apologizing was such a great deal and went to sit beside Lily picking up a piece of toast.

"Where's your bag 'Adne" Sirius said, flipping his dark locks off his face carelessly, causing some girls to swoon.

She shoved her hand into her robe pocket and fished out the small pouch and pushed in front of his face. Sirius laughed; the same bark-like laugh and asked,

"What do you keep in it? The miniature book of miniatures?"

Hermione quickly summoned a book which would never fit in a normal bag and showed it to Sirius. She forced it inside, did a mock swooning fit and hobbled off to take the timetable from Professor McGonagall.

She heard Sirius shout ("I NEVER KNEW THAT YOU COULD JOKE PROFESSOR RANGER!")

And after what seemed like years a smile flitted across her face and she hopped off for charms.

Hermione then took to taking refuge in the library, eventually befriending Remus Lupin and being name Scary-adne the silent ghost of the library for she soon started spending her entire time in the library. Sirius had made a habit of making her trip and fall by appearing out of unlikely places.

Nothing happened until one fateful Friday...