Arriving in the Atrium, Hermione made her way to her office in the Department of Mysteries. On the way down, she pondered on the events that brought her there, and to the spell she was going to try in the evening...
The Second Wizarding War had been over for nearly a year and a half now. They had lost a number of people; friends, Order members, teachers, students, …
Professor Snape, Tonks, Colin Creevey, Mad-Eye Moody, Fred Weasley, Sirius Black, Cedric Diggory; to name only a few.
After the funerals, the celebrations, the rebuilding, they had been left to mourn properly and to try to go on with their lives.
Harry and Ron had both begun Auror training, without passing their NEWTs, curtsy of the Ministry in thanks to the Boy-Who-Conquered and a second third of the Golden Trio.
Hermione had had to choose between a mountain of job offers of the Ministry and other companies that wanted the Brightest Witch of her Age and a third of the Golden Trio. She had chosen the Department of Mysteries because of the project she was going to, hopefully, finish this evening, but she also wanted to pass her NEWTs (which she did with flying colours) and so for the first three months, Hermione worked part-time at the Ministry and the rest of the time was filled with studies, reading, and taking notes.
Since Hermione had nowhere to go after the war, with her parents still in Australia, Harry had insisted that she stay with him at Grimmauld Place. She had readily agreed and moved-in the next week. And a month later Remus and his son Teddy were joining them.
After the loss of his best-friend then wife, Remus was lost. So Harry had decided that Remus was to stay as long as he wanted without paying a rent, and since he didn't have a job (because even if he was one of the Defeater of the Dark, he was still a werewolf so nobody wanted to hire him) and needed to stay home to look after Teddy, that he was to keep the house clean and the fridge full, in exchange. Remus had first refused, non wanting charity, but when Harry and said that 'Sirius would have wanted it', Remus couldn't continue to say no.
From there on, everything was going better; Remus was slowly getting past the death of Tonks and cherishing the time with Teddy, Ron was starting a sweet relationship with Luna and Harry had finally proposed to Ginny and they had moved in together in a house in Gordic's Hollow, leaving Hermione, Remus and Teddy alone at number twelve.
They had time knowing each-other better and reaffirm their friendship on equal ground. Hermione looking often after Teddy, which she adores like her own, and telling him stories of his mother.
Remus and her often read together in the library once Teddy was in bed, or talking animatedly of one thing or the other.
Her schoolgirl crush she had developed in third year was back full-force and had evolved into something else, but she couldn't and decided she wouldn't act on it. He was still mourning, didn't see her in that way and she cherished to mush their friendship to risk it all. And there was Teddy to think about too...
On the other hand, both Harry and Remus had a hard time going over the death of one Sirius Black. And Hermione was now desperate to help them. She had postponed everything she wanted to do, for that one project; retrieving her parents and giving them back their memories, continuing her education, her wish to change old and unfair wizarding laws...
So she had chosen to work where all had begun, and researched everything and anything about the Veil, where Sirius had been sent by Bellatrix's Stupefy.
And now, after a year of constant brainstorming, night-less sleep, days off at the library, she was finally able to see the end of it. Tonight.
Tonight she would try with all her might to bring back Sirius Black from the Veil.
She had found a spell in one obscure tome in the depth of the library of the Department of Mysteries.
Refero ut orbis terrarum of victus. Bring back to the world of the livings...
Since technically Sirius wasn't dead, but away from the world of the livings, in the Veil, her arithmancy calculation and her reasoning said it should work perfectly.
She hadn't told anyone of her research, not wanting them to have hopes if she didn't find anything or of it didn't work properly...