Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Stories and Conversations

Hermione smiled at her kindly. "Thanks for that Lily, but I know where the Library is. It's one of the first places I made sure I knew how to get to when I arrived." That was true, since when she was a First Year she had sought it out the second she had a moment to spare. Hermione took a deep breath and smiled again, this time at everyone. "I'll see you guys later."

And then she walked out, leaving the boys gaping, the girls smiling, and all thinking I think I'm going to like Mya Grey.


Completing Slughorn's assignment, adding an extra six inches of information, and reviewing the essay three times took up Hermione's entire free period. She sighed when she heard the bell ring, because she had enjoyed the familiarity of homework and books. She packed up her things slowly, not wanting to return to reality and face Sirius again.

Hermione paused when she thought about him. Even though she had blown up at him when she had seen him torturing Snape, he had gotten over that fairly quickly once she had earned Gryffindor a significant number of points. Although Hermione suspected that once the happiness wore off her actions would re-register in his mind and he would act differently. There hadn't really been enough time for her to notice how he would deal with her stopping him, so she would be working blind for a while.

Finally Hermione gave a mental shrug when she realized that after everything that she had gone through, and doing everything she planned to do, dealing with the petty feelings of her best friend's godfather was insignificant. She frowned when her mind traveled to the tasks she had put on herself.

The destruction of the Horcruxes.

She hadn't really talked to Dumbledore about it, so she didn't know what was really going on. She frowned, and decided to talk with him during her free period after lunch. With that thought in mind, Hermione finished packing up and began the trek to the Great Hall.

Her feet were on autopilot as she made her way down to lunch, since her brain was occupied with her plans on how to destroy the the parts of Voldemort's soul. She didn't know when he had made them all, so Hermione was unsure whether they had all been made yet. She gave another mental shrug when she realized that if they weren't all created, then that meant less work for her to do.

Hermione was jolted out of her thoughts when Lily appeared next to her out of the blue at the entranceway to the Great Hall.

"Hey Mya. Come on, sit with us."

"Thanks Lily, but-"

"No buts! And it's just me, Alice, and Mary. You won't have to deal with Sirius just yet, he's sitting at the other end of the table with James, Remus and Peter."

"Ummm... thanks- I guess."

"Oh, and when you do see Sirius, don't worry about it. He's still a little miffed about what you did, but after winning so many points for us and giving Gryffindor a clear advantage over Slytherin, he's mostly gotten over it. He may act a little cold for a while, but I can guarantee that he'll get over it before the week is over."

By this time they had reached the Gryffindor table, where Alice and Mary were already seated and eating.

"Mya! Good to see you haven't hidden in the Library for the rest of the day. Lily does that all the time, especially after encounters with James."

"Quiet Mary, I do not hide in the Library!"

"Hate to break it to you Lily, but you do," Alice murmured quietly.

Before Lily could say anything in response, Hermione intervened.

"So, what was with Sirius and Snape?"

All three girls exchanged glances.

"Well, it's sort of complicated-" Alice began, but was interrupted by Mary.

"They hate each other. Plain and simple. And it's not just Sirius, it's James too. He's backed off a bit for the past few years, but he doesn't hesitate to let Sirius at him, which is just as bad in my opinion."

"It's ridiculous, this grudge of theirs. No one even knows how it all started, I don't think even they do. It's just that for years they've ended up dueling pretty much every time they see each other." Lily commented with irritation in her voice complemented by a rolling of her eyes.

"You think you don't know how it all started Lily. But deep down inside..." Mary said in a teasing voice right before sticking her forkful of salad into her mouth. She smirked at Lily as she chewed.

"I've told you a thousand times, this has nothing to do with me!"

Mary and Alice both rolled their eyes and continued eating their lunches. For a few seconds, Hermione just looked at them, wondering what they were talking about. Even though she had a pretty good idea already.

"Ummmm... what do you mean?" she asked.

Mary smirked again as Lily once again rolled her eyes. "Well, everyone knows that James has liked Lily for years. He asks her out at the most random times, but she always turns him down. Tends to insult him in the process too." Mary said with a wink at Lily, which prompted yet another eye roll. Then she leaned closer to Hermione as if confiding in a secret, her face serious. "No one knows exactly how long he's liked her, but the fighting between James and Snape started at almost the exact time as when James first started to show that he liked her. There was always tension between them, mainly because of the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin rivalry that you may have heard about. You would think that since Snape was friends with Lily at the time that the Marauders would be nicer to him, but it seemed like it made them hate him even more."

"And then there was the incident at the end of Fifth Year." Alice whispered.

"Mya probably doesn't want to hear anymore gossip-" Lily began, obviously trying to stop the conversation that was about to take place.

"Oh, shush Lily. If she plans on continuing to do what she did before Potions then she has a right to know exactly what she's getting into." Mary pointed out.

Lily grimaced, but didn't say anything more to stop them from talking.

"Anyways," Alice said with a glance at Lily with an apologetic look, "Right after one of our O.W.L.'s, I don't remember which one, and it doesn't really matter-"

Defense Against the Dark Arts Hermione thought, recalling what Harry had told her about this incident.

"but James started hexing Snape for no apparent reason. I think he said later that they were bored.Bored. Like it was just a game. Like they weren't embarrassing or hurting anyone." Alice took a deep breath and looked like she was about to rant a bit more before Mary cut her off.

"And then Lily intervened. She and Snape were still friends at this point, although no one, not even her," she said with a jerk of her thumb in Lily's direction, "knew why. This was one of those random moments I told you about, where James asked her out."

"What did you say Lily?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I said no, of course! He said that he would stop torturing Severus if I agreed to go out with him! I-"

"So Lily intervened, turned James down again, and Snape?" Mary interrupted quickly, "Was he grateful? Was he glad that his only friend in the entire school, maybe the world, was sticking up for him? No! Like an arse, he insults her, calling her the worst possible word. He called her a-" Mary glanced around quickly, as if looking for eavesdroppers, leaned in once more, and then whispered very quietly: "a mudblood."

Mary straightened up and flipped her bangs out of her eyes. "And after that, of course James gets angry that 'Evans' was called the most derogatory word there is, and wants to defend her honor." she ended dramatically.

"And so everyone insulted each other some more, Lily stormed off, James kept torturing Snape, and things have been like that ever since." Alice finished.

"Except, like I said, James has toned down on the humiliation a bit. But he still has no problem with hexing Snape, except now he waits for a better reason. I think the last time I actually saw him curse Snape was when he was about to hex Peter."

"Anyways, we think that Snape was worried that Lily would actually go out with James, and that's why things escalated like they did when James first started to like Lily. We don't really know why he would be worried, maybe because he was afraid that James would make Lily hate him, but it doesn't really matter."

The rest of the lunch period was spent talking about various other confrontations between James, Sirius, and Snape. It surprised Hermione at how much animosity the three showed.

"And then somehow, even though you wouldn't think it was possible, things got worse last year. James and Sirius got into some kind of fight, and Snape hated them even more. He took nearly every opportunity he had to hex them. The professors practically began to follow those three around to make sure that nothing happened. Of course, they were pretty subtle about it, but it's kind of hard to ignore that when you usually never see the teachers in the hallways between classes, and then they are suddenly everywhere you go." Mary said, breaking through Hermione's reverie.

"What?" Hermione said, startled. "What happened?"

"No one knows." Alice said with a shrug. "That's the big mystery. All anyone knows for sure is that James got mad at something Sirius had done, and whatever it was made Snape angrier than anyone had ever seen. And I swear, every once and a while he looks afraid. It's hard to describe, but you see it in his eyes sometimes. But about a week after whatever it was, James and Sirius were best friends again. Those two are inseparable."

But Hermione didn't hear that last bit. Something that made James get mad at Sirius, and made Snape hate them even more... Her eyes widened as she came to the only possible conclusion. Of course! Sirius told Snape how to get down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack! James didn't agree with it, and went to save Snape, but Snape thought that it was both of their ideas. He just thought that they were willing to kill him, making him hate them even more. He would look a little afraid, knowing that Remus was a werewolf. And with no Wolfsbane Potion yet, there would be nothing to keep the wolf from attacking...

It saddened Hermione to think that even in around sixteen years, Sirius would not regret telling Snape how to get down the tunnel. He had said so himself, saying that Snape had gotten what he deserved for sneaking around and trying to find out their secret. She sighed, knowing that there was little she could do to change Sirius' view on Snape.

The bell rung, once again startling Hermione. She quickly got up, making up some excuse about not finishing Slughorn's essay and needing to go back to the Library and finish it, and headed towards the Headmaster's office. She managed to make it to the stone gargoyle just as Professor Dumbledore was about to say the password.

"Professor!"

He turned, smiled that smile of his, and spoke.

"Miss Grey, how nice to see you. Why don't you come into my office so we can talk about how well you are adjusting?"

As a group of students passed her, she grabbed at the excuse and nodded. They stepped onto the revolving staircase and didn't speak again until they had entered his office and settled down into their respective chairs.

Dumbledore pressed his fingertips together as he leaned his elbows onto the desk. "What can I do for you, Miss Granger?" he asked, surprising Hermione when he used her actual surname.

She got over her surprise fairly quickly as she immediately launched into her reason for talking with him. "I wanted to talk about my mission."

"Aaaaah. I see. What in particular do you want to discuss?"

"Everything. How am I going to be going to the different places where the Horcruxes are hidden? How am I going to destroy them? What will I do if I can't get past one of the defenses? What-"

Dumbledore held up his hand to stop the flow of breathless questions. "First and foremost, we would need to find a way to destroy the Horcruxes. It would be pointless to retrieve them if we can't do anything to them afterwards."

"We?"

The Headmaster looked straight into her eyes, the twinkle in them gone. "Yes. We. I will not leave you to do this alone. While I have many other duties to attend to, with Lord Voldemort on the rise, I may not be able to give as much attention to this matter as I would like. However, I will do my best."

"So... I will have to do some of this alone."

"Correct."

"Right. So, what are we going to do to destroy the Horcruxes?"

"What did you do to destroy them in your time?"

"Let's see... the first one was stabbed with a basilisk's tooth, the second with Gryffindor's sword, the third-"

"Gryffindor's sword? How is that possible?"

Hermione grimaced at the question. She could think about the destruction of Horcruxes just fine without thinking about THEM, but answering Dumbledore's query would mean remembering Harry. She steeled herself for the story.

"Harry pulled it out of the Sorting Hat when he faced Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets- that's not just a legend, by the way. Tom was a Horcrux and was taking the life of a good friend of mine to make himself stronger, so he had a form. Fawkes brought down the Sorting Hat, Harry put it on, and out came the sword.

"Harry used it to stab the basilisk hiding in the Chamber, causing the goblin metal in the sword to absorb the venom and be able to use it to make itself stronger."

"And the venom of the basilisk is one of the only things that can destroy a Horcrux." Dumbledore murmured. "Impressive."

"Yeah." Hermione whispered, her eyes far away as she was swamped by memories of her past.

Professor Dumbledore seemed to notice, for he prompted her to continued. "And the third Horcrux?"

Hermione shook her head free of her thoughts, and continued down the list. "The third was also stabbed by Gryffindor's sword, the fourth stabbed by another basilisk tooth, the fifth burned in Fiendfyre, the sixth was decapitated by Gryffindor's sword, the seventh killed by the Killing Curse, well, sort of."

Dumbledore raised one of his eyebrows. "Could you elaborate on what exactly each of the Horcruxes was?"

So Hermione took a deep breath and briefly explained about the diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, Nagini, and Harry.

The professor leaned back in his chair as he contemplated the significance of each one of those objects. Soon, however, Hermione was back to her questions.

"So how am I going to destroy the Horcruxes? If I have to I'll go down to the Chamber of Secrets again and kill the basilisk so I can use it's teeth, but I would prefer a different option. We can't use Gryffindor's sword since it hasn't killed the basilisk yet, and I am extremely hesitant to cast Fiendfyre."

Dumbledore frowned, the asked, "How much would it affect the future if we were to kill the basilisk?"

This time it was Hermione's turn to frown. "I don't know. Not much, if we destroy the diary, since that was what started that whole mess."

The Headmaster frowned once more, then shook his head. "I am not willing to put you in that much risk Miss Granger."

Hermione let go of the breath she didn't realize she was holding. "That's good, I suppose, but then what should we do? Use Fiendfyre?"

"Yes." His eyebrows furrowed as he thought the situation through. "You mentioned the Room of Requirement, so we could ask it to create a room where we can store the Horcruxes, alone, where only you or I could access it. We could make it a room that will not affect the rest of the school and will not damage anything else when I cast Fiendfyre. The Horcruxes can stay there for as long as we need them to, until we have gathered them all and can destroy them at the same time."

Hermione mulled the idea over and agreed that that was probably the best they could do under the circumstances. It actually made quite a bit of sense.

"Okay, so then how am I going to be going to the places where they are hidden?"

"I can take you there using Side-Along Apparition."

"What if they aren't in the same place now than then? The cup at the very least probably isn't in the Lestrange vault, since Bellatrix hasn't been married yet. Although Voldemort may have originally entrusted the cup to Rodolphus..."

Dumbledore was nodding in agreement. "Yes, I have suspected Rodolphus to be one of Lord Voldemort's most trusted followers. It is possible the cup is there."

"But what if it isn't? I have no idea where else it would be!"

"I believe that should be one trip that I will make alone. I once did a favor for one of the goblins at Gringotts, and they do not like to feel indebted. He is no friend of Voldemort, and may be willing to help in bringing about his demise. He would be more inclined to do me a favor if I was alone, not wanting someone else, especially a human, to see that he is in my debt."

Hermione nodded in understanding, knowing after her experience with Griphook and from History of Magic what goblins were like. It would also be a lot easier than trying to break in and get past all of the defenses. While she may have been able to do it once, she very much doubted her ability to do it a second time.

"What happens if I cannot get past their defenses? I wasn't there to see how it was done for all of them, in fact I only know how to access two. One of which you will be taking care of. Even though two Horcruxes have not yet been created, that still leaves three others we need to deal with."

"We will deal with their defenses once we know for sure what those defenses happen to be."

Hermione took a deep breath before asking her next question.

"What happens if I fail?"


While Hermione was talking with Professor Dumbledore, Sirius was thinking. He was currently laying in his bed, his hands behind his head, staring up, his eyes not really focused on anything.

Sirius was mulling over that which was Mya Grey.

She was a mystery, that was for sure. He was nearly positive that she had lost her parents, making her an orphan, although he wasn't sure. She hid her emotions well, but Sirius was well versed in reading other people. That was one lesson his parents had forced him to undergo that he had actually learned.

She also knew the passageways of Hogwarts like the back of her hand. Ones that the Marauders hadn't even discovered. It wasn't just last night either. This morning, while she was talking with Remus before breakfast, Sirius had followed them. While his friend may have been too engrossed in their conversation to realize it, Hermione had led the way through tapestries and tunnels that had taken Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter years to find.

Then there was the way that Mya had stopped him from bullying Snape. It wasn't that she had been right about him (It wasn't!), it was that her anger did not seem to stem from a dislike from watching bullies, or from a dislike of violence. It was personal with her. The only thing that made sense was that she had once been bullied, which didn't make sense. That's what confused him so much. She was so confident of herself that it was almost impossible to see anyone making fun of her and getting away with it.

Sirius sighed for the tenth time in as many minutes. He knew that people expected him to shun her, ridicule her, possibly hex her, after what she had done this morning. Except his respect for her had been raised by the fact that she stood up to him. So many girls were self-centered and thought only of themselves, or were too arrogant to care about others, or lacked the backbone to stand up to anyone, or cared too much about their appearances to defend others and went along with the crowd.

But he disliked her for ruining his game. He did enjoy tormenting Snape for no good reason, although earlier today he had tried to figure out why and couldn't come up with anything. There was just something about insulting someone so snide and hateful that got to him.

Subconsciously, he knew a different reason. Sirius would never admit to it consciously though. Because somewhere in his mind, he knew that there was the possibility that that could have been him. He could have been the person that everyone was disgusted with and hated. Had he been sorted into Slytherin, he knew that the others would have seen him as a disgrace and shunned him. His current friends may never have spoken to him because of his house (even though another part of him knew that he and James would have been friends no matter what after the train ride to Hogwarts their very first time.)

But it was still there. Even though Sirius was only barely aware of it, in the deepest recesses of his subconscious, that though was there.

That could have been him.


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