A/N: Beta'd by the lovely msmerlin and BirdieMing! Thank you both for your work on this!

Again many, many thanks to LaBelladoneX and her daughter for helping to make the Irish translations not straight from Google Translate. I'm terrible about telling people that I use Google Translate because I just forget, but I did, and it was all wrong and LaBelladoneX kindly PM'd me to help me correct it. So many thanks to her! Also, apparently I was calling the language the wrong thing too, so my apologies there as well.

If you loved this (or hated it) let me know about it in a review! Find the aesthetic for this story on my Tumblr: crochetawayhpff or my Facebook Shan Crochetaway.

Everything is grey

his hair

his smoke

his dreams

-Halsey

Chapter 2: Caught

October 2021

Hermione stopped herself from screaming but dropped her cup, hot coffee splashing onto her legs as the mug hit the tile of her kitchen and shattered.

"Fuck!" She jumped back, looking down at the mess. Her wand was still on her bedside table. She grabbed a tea towel from the counter and began wiping the hot coffee off her legs.

"Let me get that," Sirius said. With a flick of his wand, the coffee mess was cleaned up and the mug was repaired. With another flick, he refilled the mug with the rest of the coffee in the French press.

"Thanks," Hermione said, staring at a man who had died twenty-five years ago. "Who are you?" This man standing in her kitchen couldn't possibly be Sirius Black.

Sirius grinned lopsidedly. "You've forgotten me already, kitten? Sirius Orion Black, at your service." He bowed low and courtly.

Hermione scowled. "Don't call me kitten. I meant, what are you doing here? How are you alive? Have you been alive all this time?"

"Well, technically, I'm not alive? Or rather, I haven't been? It's confusing. What do you know of Magical Guardians?" Sirius pointed his wand at the kettle on the cooker, and Hermione watched as it filled with water and began to boil. She picked up the French press and cleaned it out, it was only meant to hold two cups of coffee, and clearly, Sirius needed some too.

"I don't think I've ever heard…well, shit," Hermione realized the translation she had been working on the night before.

"Yes, kitten?"

"Seriously, I'm not a teenager anymore. Don't call me that. Wait, do you know who I am?" It had occurred to her that maybe Sirius didn't know it was her. Didn't he remember that when he called her by that nickname it would rile her up? If he'd forgotten about that, then hopefully he'd forgotten about the massive crush she once had on him. Sometimes, Hermione thought she was more upset with Sirius's death than Harry. She'd spent the summer after his death healing from her wounds, and crying over Sirius. It had been a terrible holiday.

"Of course I do, Hermione Jean Granger-Weasley." Sirius grinned at her. "Divorced from Ronald Bilius Weasley, mother of Rose 'Rosie' Jean Granger-Weasley, and of Hugo Arthur Granger-Weasley."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. How could he possibly know all that?

"I'm your Magical Guardian," Sirius answered as if he'd read her mind.

"What? I don't need a Magical Guardian!"

"Maybe not." He shrugged. "But you did call for me. Didn't you?"

That Irish phrase from the book yesterday; it had said something about Magical Guardians.

"Maybe." She moved to pass Sirius, heading to the kitchen table and her bag on top of it. Sirius didn't move out of her way, and she had to brush past his body. Hermione tried to control her blush as their shoulders touched. She was forty-two for crying out loud. She stopped in her tracks when she suddenly realized she was still dressed in her night clothes, a skimpy camisole and sleeping shorts, then changed her course for her bedroom. She'd just throw a robe on.

As she reached for her robe on a hook behind the door, Sirius leaned against the door frame.

"Cute cottage," he said casually.

Hermione jumped, not realizing he had followed her.

"Magical Guardian or not, I deserve some privacy," she snapped at him as she pulled the warm flannel robe over her meager night clothes.

Sirius dragged his eyes up and down her body. "But I like the other view better," he said. Then he turned away and headed down the short corridor back to the kitchen.

Hermione's face reddened. Had he just complimented her looks? She shook her head and followed behind him. Once back in the kitchen, she dug through her bag and pulled out the Irish dictionary and the parchment she had the night before, reading it over.

Cosantóir Draíochta, Caomhnóir Draíochta:

Magical Protector, Magical Guardian:

An féidir leat mé a fheiceáil tríd an Liath?

Can you see me through the Grey?

Tar tríd an Imbhalla, tar go dtí na daoine atá beo.

Come through the

"Yep, that would do it," Sirius said as he read over her shoulder. "That last line is 'Come through the veil, come to the living.'"

Hermione turned her head to look at him and realized their faces were within kissing distance. Mentally, she shook herself. She shouldn't be thinking about kissing this man. There was a mystery to solve.

"You know Irish?"

"Some," Sirius replied. "Where did you find the spell?"

Hermione turned and looked back down at the parchment. Sirius tapped it with his wand, and the last line filled itself in.

Cosantóir Draíochta, Caomhnóir Draíochta:

Magical Protector, Magical Guardian:

An féidir leat mé a fheiceáil tríd an Liath?

Can you see me through the Grey?

Tar tríd an Imbhalla, tar go dtí na daoine atá beo.

Come through the veil, come to the living.

"In a book." Hermione shrugged.

Sirius tossed his head back and laughed. "I should have expected that sort of answer from you. You always were a bit of a swot."

Hermione frowned and moved away from him. She couldn't concentrate when he was standing so near her. The crush she'd had on him as a teenager seemed to be creeping back and that terrified Hermione.

"Well, what's on the agenda for today, kitten?" Sirius asked as he poured the boiling water from the kettle into the French press.

Hermione picked up her own mug of coffee and took a sip. "I need to go to work. Read through that book and see if I can figure out a way to send you back."

"Send me back?" Sirius looked affronted. "Why would you want to do that?"

He sounded almost hurt, and Hermione cringed, she hadn't meant to hurt him.

"Well, weren't you in the afterlife or something? Why would you want to hang around swotty, old me?" She focused on her coffee, avoiding his eyes.

"No. I was in this weird misty-grey place. Then I got the call to be your Magical Guardian and jumped at the chance to be out of there. It was like purgatory or something, dull and dreadfully boring."

"Got the call? What does that mean?"

"It means I was sitting in an unimaginably boring grey space when up walked the Unseelie King. I didn't even know how long I'd been dead."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "The Unseelie King?!"

"Mmm." Sirius nodded. "Scary fucker. Anyway, he tells me he's got a call for a Magical Guardian, and I'm the man for the job. Who was I to turn him down?" Sirius grinned at her.

Hermione hadn't picked her jaw up from the floor yet. He couldn't be serious, could he?

"The Unseelie King?"

"Yes, I just said that." Sirius frowned at her.

Hermione felt like her brain was stuck. The Unseelie King was real? Not some figure of Irish mythology? "He's real?"

"Scary as hell, too," Sirius commented.

"I don't…" Hermione trailed off. It's not that she didn't want to believe Sirius. The fact that Sirius, who had died twenty-five years ago, was now standing here in front of her lent some truth to it, but her logical mind just couldn't quite wrap her head around it. "Why would the Unseelie King want to help though? Aren't the Unseelie known to be malevolent?"

"Mmm, that is a good question, kitten. I'm not sure I have an answer for it. And…" It was Sirius' turn to trail off.

"And?" Hermione prompted.

"Well, what if I'm being used in a bigger plot by the Unseelie King? That makes me nervous. I was so happy to be able to come back; I didn't think about it." Sirius shrugged and looked mildly embarrassed. Hermione was nonplussed. She didn't think Sirius could be embarrassed.

"Did he say anything else?" Hermione asked.

"Just told me what year it was, who I'd be sent to, and what being a Magical Guardian is all about. Actually, now that I think about it, this is probably your fault," Sirius said.

"I know it's my fault, dammit!" Hermione exploded. "Nine years spent going through musty old books, and one time, one freaking time, I say an incantation out loud, and this is what I wake up to." She gestured to him, disgusted with herself.

Sirius stiffened. "I see. If you don't need my services, I can leave."

Shockingly, he started fading from view.

"No! Sirius! Don't go, wait," Hermione said. She had wanted to send him back into the afterlife, but that grey misty place he was talking about couldn't possibly be the afterlife, could it? She might actually have to engage with some of her colleagues in the Death Chamber.

"Yes?" he asked, still half visible, his tone bored and unaffected. She could see her cooker through him.

"Listen, sorry. I want to help you. Wherever you were doesn't sound like the afterlife, like what Beyond the Veil is supposed to be. I'm not sure. I don't work in the Death Chamber, but I can speak with some of the other Unspeakables. Maybe we can have you move on properly."

"But I'm supposed to be your Magical Guardian." Sirius pouted.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "And what does that entail?"

"Well, according to the Unseelie King, it means I'm basically your slave. In whatever capacity you'll have me." The look Sirius gave Hermione was positively smoldering. She licked her lips and watched as his eyes darted to her mouth. He took a step closer to her.

"Right," Hermione said brusquely and ducked around Sirius. "I'll get ready for work, and we'll go in and see."

"See what?" Sirius called as she slammed the bathroom door.

"Merlin." Hermione breathed as she leaned back against the closed bathroom door. Whatever she felt for Sirius as a teenager seemed to have come roaring back to life. He looked positively delicious standing in her kitchen. She shook her head. He wasn't really alive. Any relationship she had with him would be moot. Relationship? I'm just thinking of sex, her inner voice whispered.

Hermione closed her eyes and tamped down her emotions. She needed to shower and get to work. Maybe that book would have some answers, and she should talk with the Unspeakables in the Death Chamber. They might know more about Beyond the Veil and whatever afterlife Sirius had been trapped in.

"You can't come with me," Hermione told him as she brushed an imaginary piece of lint from her robes, intending to Floo to the Ministry.

"Why not?" Sirius asked.

"Because you died twenty-five years ago! You'll cause a panic!"

"I can become invisible to everyone but you." He grinned at her.

"Fine. But you have to be invisible to others. And no talking!" She warned him. She was already unimaginably late, what was Aggie going to think?

"In that case, we better Floo together, right kitten?" He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Hermione's face flamed. "Fine," she snapped, her voice tight with both anxiety and embarrassment. She shuffled forward, and Sirius did the same. Then she dropped the Floo powder into the fireplace and shouted, "Ministry of Magic!"

In a swirl of green flames, they were spat out of the Ministry fireplace, and Hermione shuffled forward. When Sirius didn't let go, she elbowed him.

"Ouch," he complained in her ear.

"Let go so I can walk," she whispered to him.

"Alright, alright," he muttered back and placed a hand on her shoulder. Hermione started walking forward just as the Floo activated and someone else stepped out.

Hermione hustled toward the lifts.

"Take the stairs," Sirius said.

"Right." Hermione nodded and smiled to a few people she knew as she headed toward the door for the stairs.

"Stairs today, Granger?"

Hermione whirled around to see Zacharias Smith addressing her. Sirius barely kept up, and Hermione was sure Smith could see him by the way he narrowed his eyes. Smith was in the budget office and disproved of everything that cost money, including having hired Hermione to assist Aggie's research.

"Er, yes. New exercise regimen." She smiled weakly and turned back to the stairs, hurrying toward them.

"Fucking ponce," Sirius growled into her ear, and Hermione couldn't help but giggle, thankful that almost nobody else took the stairs at the Ministry, and they were alone.

"What did I say about being silent?" she hissed at him once they rounded the corner down the flight of stairs that led to the Department of Mysteries. They entered into a back corridor that was behind the Hall of Prophecy, skipping the Room of Doors entirely. It was a standard maintenance corridor and was drab and boring. Hermione counted doors until she reached the one that marked the research room.

"Merlin, how do you find your way around?" Sirius asked in amazement as Hermione opened the correct door and entered the small lobby that led to her and Aggie's offices as well as the corridor toward the storage rooms and archives.

"You get used to it," Hermione mumbled back quietly. She wanted to sneak into her office without Aggie realizing she was here. She glanced at her watch. It was almost nine-thirty, meaning she was much later than usual. Aggie probably assumed she had stayed too late the night before.

A glance told her Aggie's door was closed, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she hustled Sirius into her office and closed her own door.

Sirius promptly sat in the big swivel chair behind the desk. "Nice chair." He grinned at her as he leaned back and gave it a twirl.

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to the bookcase next to her door. Taking down her safebox, she set it on her desk and opened it. The book was still inside, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She was glad Aggie hadn't decided to take a look at it this morning. He didn't normally, but she was feeling paranoid. She levitated the book out of the box and set it on the desk.

"This it?" Sirius asked, leaning forward and reaching for the book.

"Don't touch it!" Hermione scolded him and slapped his hand with her wand. "Don't you know anything about research and magical artifacts?"

Sirius scowled at her.

"Besides, last time I touched it, I was compelled to say a magical phrase inside it, and you appeared in my cottage," Hermione muttered.

"Hey, s'alright kitten, you'll get used to me." Sirius winked at her, and Hermione bit her lip. She didn't know what it was about Sirius, but he had always held that unique ability to make her laugh.

"Right." She took a deep breath and ran a scanning spell of her own creation over the book. It looked for intent, and she wanted to tease out the compulsion charm, but the spell came back clean. "Strange," she mumbled.

"Care to enlighten me?" Sirius asked.

"There has to be some sort of compulsion spell on the book. I have never once said a phrase out loud, and yet yesterday, I did without even thinking."

"Maybe you were tired." Sirius shrugged.

Hermione shook her head, her neat braid coming apart from the fierceness of the shake. A tendril loosened and slid across her cheek, and she tucked it back behind her ear.

"No, it's never happened before. It has to be a charm, but every diagnostic and scanning spell I run on it comes back clean."

"Can I…" Sirius trailed off and gestured toward the book.

Hermione frowned but nodded. He opened the book slowly and the same as yesterday, pages and pages of it were blank.

"It was like that yesterday too. I placed my hand on it to grab my wand, and that's when the words appeared, and I was compelled to speak them."

Sirius nodded. "So you can't read anything that's written here?" He gestured to the blank page before him.

"Are you seeing writing?" Hermione asked.

"You aren't?"

"Why would you be able to see writing in the book, but I cannot? Can you read it? What does it say?"

"Well, it's mostly Irish. Which I know, but not well." Sirius frowned, and Hermione could see his lips mumbling.

"Don't!" she shouted, leaning forward and covering his mouth with her hand. "Don't say anything out loud!"

Sirius' eyes widened, and he backed away from her and the book. "Merlin, that thing's dangerous."

"I know." Hermione nodded in agreement. "Do you think it's…Merlin, this is silly, do you think it's the Unseelie King's Grimoire?"

Hermione was skeptical that such a thing could exist, but it had been whispered about for years. It was something of an urban legend in wizarding Britain and Ireland.

Sirius laughed. "That's just a myth."

"Is it?" Hermione asked with her eyebrow raised.

"Who's this then?" a voice from behind Hermione asked. She whirled around to find Aggie standing in the doorway staring over her shoulder.

"Aggie, you scared me!" Hermione smiled at him.

"Who is that Hermione?" he asked, his voice hard. Hermione gulped. What was she going to tell her boss?

"Sirius Black." Sirius stood and crossed the small room to shake Aggie's hand.

"You're dead," Aggie said flatly and refused to shake Sirius' hand.

"Not anymore." Sirius grinned brightly and slung his arm across Hermione's shoulders. "I'm her Magical Guardian."

"Her what?" Aggie looked at Hermione with accusation heavy in his eyes.

"Aggie, I can explain. And I'm going to fix it. Let's step into your office for a moment."

Aggie nodded and left. Hermione pushed Sirius' arm off her shoulder. "Stay here."

"I'm not a dog!" Sirius shouted after her as Hermione hurried out of her office and to Aggie's.