Chapter 2 – The Explanation

The Minister for Magic entered the Ministry early on Thursday morning, holding a warm cup of Starbucks coffee in his hand.

'Really quite ingenious these muggles' he thought, smiling to himself. He began to hum to himself as he continued along the corridor leading to his office. He reached his door, and, glancing at the golden plaque that adorned it, opened the door and hurried inside. However, he could not have been prepared for the sight that greeted him inside, for Sirius Black was standing at his desk, ferreting through the mass of papers that covered it. At the sound of the door opening Sirius whipped around, his wand held up high and then relaxed it when he recognized the familiar face in front of him.

"Kingsley?! What are you doing here? Where are Harry, and Dumbledore and everyone?" he said anxiously. When Kingsley continued to look at him, in shock and bemusement, the look of confusion on Sirus' face turned to one of worry.

"Kings? The battle! What happened? Say something!" he said, growing more and more agitated and Kingsley merely stared at him.

Eventually, Kingsley took one deep breath, and skirted around Sirius to sit at his desk. He placed his coffee down next to some reports about enchanted hairdryers, and looked up at Sirius.

"Please sit down, Sirius. I think you should be seated for this." he said calmly, indicating to a squashy armchair that sat on the other side of his desk. Sirius looked at it warily, and took it.

"Right, would I be right in guessing that the last thing you remember is falling into the veil 4 years ago?" he continued. At this statement, Sirius' mouth fell open.

"W-What?! Four years ago?" he managed to splutter out.

"I'll take that as a yes" said Kingsley with a slight chuckle. "Yes it was four years ago. We were all sure you were dead. Maybe you were - as you can probably tell by its placing – the veil is a complete mystery. We only know it has something to do with time, and I would say that's accurate judging by your appearance."

"What?" asked Sirius, who had been contemplating Kingsley's words carefully. So he has been gone for four years. That meant Harry must be around 19 by now. He could only assume the War was either over seeing as none of the reports on Kingsley's desk contained anything about Voldemort or Death Eaters.

"Well, judging by your appearance, I'd say you're around 20. You look about the age you did before you went to…oh of course!" Kingsley exclaimed, slapping his forehead. Sirius looked even more puzzled at this point and simply looked at Kingsley, with one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"The veil! We know it has something to do with time, and righting wrongs. It must have given you back the years you spend wrongfully imprisoned. You're 22 again Sirius!"

Sirius looked like it was Christmas, his birthday and Easter Sunday all rolled into one.

"That's bloody brilliant!" he said, grinning broadly and standing up. Suddenly he remembered why he had sought out the Minister for Magic in the first place – answers.

"While that's all well and good, and certainly cause for celebration later, I need to know. What's happened? Is Harry ok? What about the war? And Remus…and Tonks, did they ever get together-"

Kingsley stopped Sirius by holding up his hand. Sirius sat down, silenced. A few minutes passed while Kingsley rubbed his bald, black head in thought and then looked at Sirius.

"This is going to take a while" he said. And it did. He told Sirius everything that had happened in the four years he had been gone. When his story reached the Battle of Hogwarts and the deaths of Fred, Remus and Tonks, Sirius let out a cry of grief and tears began to fall from his eyes. However, when Kingsley spoke of Harry's triumph over Voldemort, Sirius smiled and clapped his hands together, picturing the scene.

"…and Harry finally married Ginny, just last week in fact, and he and Ron work here in the Auror Department…and that's about it, I suppose" Kingsley concluded.

As Sirius processed all this information, a thought occurred to him.

"Hey – what about Hermione? You didn't mention her…" he trailed off as he noticed the look in Kingsleys face. Kingsley let out a single sigh.

--

The first few rays of sunlight began to gently awaken Hermione as she stirred from her slumber. She began to wake and a few moments later, she sat up and sleepily rubbed her eyes, feeling the make-up smudge down her face. She sat on the edge of her bed, as she held her head in her hands, wishing for her headache to go away. As she went to get a glass of water from the tiny sink in her bathroom, she cut her foot on a smashed bottle of some kind on the floor. She could not remember how it got there and nor did she care. Hermione didn't care much about anything anymore.

She stopped for a second at the pain coursing through her foot, and then carried on walking towards her bathroom. She flicked the light on and grabbed some toilet roll to stench the bleeding which stopped after a minute or two. She continued to stare at the fairly deep cut on her foot, and the rummaged through the cupboard for a plaster, which she placed over the cut. She stood up and walked over to her small sink, and grubby mirror above it. Not for the first time, she was shocked by what she saw.

A girl with a gaunt face and platinum blonde hair looked back at her. This girl was dangerously thin, and fragile. This girl wore underwear only, a plain black bra and knicker set, that made her look even worse when set next to her pale and milky skin. This girl had a look in her eye, a look of unfeeling and loss in her chocolate orbs. Hermione stared at this girl in the mirror and the girl stared back at her. Hermione could barely believe it was her but it had to be. Why else would the girl move when she did? Why else would the girl have the exactly same half moon battle scar around her belly button? Hermione recalled the time she got that scar, and, with a wave of guilt, looked defiantly back at the mirror.

'This is what I am now' she thought furiously 'This is what I deserve'

HarryxPotterx4ever - Thanks so much for your review, this is my first fic and I'm really nervous! I'm going away tomorrow till Wednesday but I'll try to have the next chapter up by Thursday.