HERMIONE

Lily finally woke up the next day. Sirius wasted no time telling her who put James in the bed next to her. Lily was angrier than when Snape had called her a mudblood. Looking around at my second family I took note of their stricken expressions. It was clear they hadn't faced anything to this degree yet. Despite suffering their personal losses, they'd lived in blissful ignorance behind the castle walls. Being Harry –The Chosen One- Potter's best friend made me spoiled with my own brushes with death. I knew they'd want to fight just like I did. They'd join the Order in a heartbeat.

Since I've come to the decision that they would not be dying this time around, I've figured it's best to let them know what exactly we are up against. I was going to tell them everything. And it was going to destroy their innocent ignorance.

With that in mind, after everyone had been healed, I led them up to the Room of Requirement. There we found a small replica of the Gryffindor common room- loveseats, armchairs, and a raging fireplace all emblazoned in red and gold. I asked a house elf to bring us tea and motioned for them to sit.

"So, why couldn't Peter come? If it's important, shouldn't he be here?" James asked innocently.

The elf came back, I told him to bring back firewhiskey.

"I'll get to that." I said and took a sip of tea. "I've decided that I don't want to sit back and watch history play out. Since I can't go back, this is my home too and I'm not going to stop fighting." I chanced a look around me, they were waiting for more. Sirius gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

"I should probably start at the beginning, or more specifically, my beginning." I cleared my throat and began.

"By now you could probably guess I'm a bit of a bookworm." They chuckled. "When I was eleven, I got my Hogwarts letter, but being muggleborn, I didn't know anything about the magical world. Not wanting to be at a disadvantage, I read every book I could before boarding the Hogwarts Express the first time."

I sipped my tea and took a big breath.

"I'd read about a savior. The person who defeated Lord Voldemort, the only person to ever survive the Killing Curse." Lily gasped. "He'd done the impossible, I know, but he had only been a year old. They called him The-Boy-Who-Lived." I looked closely at the mix of calculating and disbelieving looks trying to figure out how a one year old could do it.

"Imagine my surprise when I met the boy on the train to Hogwarts also for his first year. Imagine my surprise when he didn't even know why he was so famous in the wizarding world." They looked befuddled.

"He was raised by his muggle relatives who lied to him for half his life about who he was. His parents had died that night along with Voldemort."

"How do you know about his relatives? That couldn't have been in books." Remus reasoned.

"You're right. He told me because he was my best friend." Everyone paled.

"Not, n-not Lily and..." Sirius couldn't even finish. I nodded sadly.

"When you mean muggle relatives, you don't mean…?" Lily trailed off.

"Yes and not a day goes by that I don't want to hex your horse of a sister." I said heatedly. "But don't worry, it won't come to this. Harry will grow up with his parents." I said more to myself than anyone else.

"Why was Voldemort after us? We couldn't have been anything special to him." James asked after a moment of silence.

"You were. There was a prophecy made about a boy who would go on to defeat him. There were two babies who fit the qualifications, you two and Alice and Frank's child." I paused. "Inevitably, by going after Harry, he had chosen his equal."

"What happened to Alice and Frank?" Lily asked quietly. I sighed.

"Once word got out that Voldemort had perished, his most loyal followers wanted retribution."

"They killed them?" Lily gasped. I shook my head.

"Worse. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange held them under the Cruciatus. They tortured them to insanity. Neville grew up with his grandmother. We'll save them from their fate too."

"How?" Sirius rasped.

"I'm getting there. Just-" I poured myself a glass of firewhiskey and tossed it back . "I'm sorry. James and Lily were placed under the Fidelus Charm for just over a year after Harry had been born. Sirius was, naturally the secret keeper." Sirius looked proud. "At the last second, about a week before Voldemort's downfall, you switched. You said that anyone could guess that you knew and you were afraid of giving up your best friend." A few tears started to leak down my face. I closed my eyes. "There was a spy in the Order. Everyone blamed everyone. You chose Peter to keep your secret. No one would've suspected him." I took another deep breath. "Peter was- is- a deatheater. He betrayed you. Handed you over."

Remus swore. Sirius growled. James was in disbelief. Lily had tears running down her face.

"Sirius tried to go after him, to kill him, once he'd realized, he chased Peter to a muggle street. Peter framed Sirius for the murder of twelve of those muggles and himself as well as the deaths of Lily and James. Peter cut off his own finger, set off an explosion, turned into his rat animagus and hid for twelve years while Sirius went to Azkaban with no trial." There were even more tears streaming down my face. Sirius looked livid, like he could kill Peter right now.

"H-he can't be a d-deatheater." James was still in disbelief.

"Prongs, it makes sense. He disappears all the time. He even wears long sleeves all the time come to think of it." Remus was getting angrier with every word. "Why didn't I realize? In the future?"

"Dumbledore had sent you on missions for months at a time to convene with other werewolves. You weren't around enough to notice, and there was so much death and confusion, not to mention Harry being born."

Everyone was quiet. They were grieving the loss of their friend. I told them this was the reason he wasn't with us to hear my story. They reasoned that Peter had told Voldemort about me and that was why there was an attack on Hogsmeade. We sipped our tea for what felt like hours.

"You were at war where you came from. I feel that wasn't the end of the story." Remus broke the silence with what was more like a statement than a question. I nodded taking that as my cue to continue.

"You all know I'm skilled with a wand, more than what books teach." They nodded. "We have been fighting since we were eleven. We've been up against trolls, three-headed dogs, giant chess boards, cursed bludgers, giant acromantulas, a basilisk, dementors, mass murderers, werewolves, a dragon, merpeople, cursed objects, deatheaters, traitors, horrid teachers, centaurs, reporters, the bloody Ministry; I've been petrified, held at the bottom of the lake, I broke into the ministry-twice, rode on the back of a thestral- twice, I've been tortured, cursed, splinched, believe it or not, I've actually time traveled before this, and finally before I came here, I'd been on the run living out of a tent for the past year. And Harry and Ron were with me the whole way."

Everyone looked thoroughly shocked. Mouths hung open.

"Fucking hell, love." Sirius said thoroughly astonished.

"Why would you have to go through all of this if Voldemort was defeated?" Remus questioned.

"The night Lily and James died, Voldemort didn't actually die, only his body did. He made horcruxes."

Sirius paled. Everyone else looked confused.

"What's a horcrux?" Lily asked innocently.

"It's extremely dark magic that splits your soul. You have to murder someone to do it." Sirius said. Lily gasped.

"So do you know where it is?" James asked me.

"I have an idea where they are-"

"Did you say they? As in more than one?" Remus asked with wide eyes. I nodded. James and Sirius swore.

"The bastard made more than one? It's bad enough to do it once." Sirius raved.

"I believe at this moment he has five, in my time he had seven." I explained.

"The most powerful magical number." Lily whispered.

"So what's our plan? Clearly you've thought this through." Remus asked.

"Yes. I have a rough outline of major events coming up and we can save as many as we can along the way. But we have to do it secretly, Dumbledore can't know I'm changing things. He's already put me under an unbreakable vow." They nodded understandingly.

"So what's the first thing that happens?" Sirius asks.

"Dumbledore's going to ask you to join the Order of the Phoenix at the end of this year. It's imperative you do, he already knows you want to fight, if you decline he'll know something's amiss."

They nodded.

"And when do we get the horo-thingies?" James asked impatiently.

"Horcruxes. There are windows of opportunity to obtain each one. The tricky part is destroying them. In my time Harry had killed a basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor so the venom was embedded in the sword so we were able to destroy the horcruxes. But since it hasn't been killed yet, I'm going to have to learn how to control fiendfyre." I said.

"No. No way-"

"It's either that or we go kill a basalisk." I cut Sirius off. Everyone was silent.

"Love, do you have any stories that are happy and not life threatening?" Sirius asked finally.

I laughed. "I punched Lucius's son, Draco Malfoy, in the face my third year. Then, I went back in time and watched myself do it again." Sirius barked out a laugh.

"Come on, there's got to be more!" James said between laughs.

"I kept an illegal animagus beetle, who was a reporter, in a jar for a year after she wrote horribly things about us. I set Snape's robes on fire my first year, he was our potions professor for years. I-"

"No way Snivelly was a professor." James said through laughs.

"Remus was. Best Defense professor we ever had." Everyone laughed harder. Remus went red in the face.

"Now hush. Let's see… Oh! My second year, I brewed polyjuice potion for Harry, Ron, and myself, but I accidentally put cat hair in mine. I was in the hospital wing for weeks."

"You turned yourself into a cat?" Sirius laughed.

"You brewed pollyjuice? When you were twelve?" Lily looked put out.

"A cat?! Did you guys not hear?" Looked around at his mates then back at me. "I think that deserves a nickname, Kitten."

"That's exactly what you called me in the future." I said with a watery smile.

"You know what they say, great minds and all that." Sirius said pulling me into his lap.

"That's our cue to leave." Remus said, awkwardly getting up.


SIRIUS

We didn't hear the rest of our friends leave as we were too thoroughly wrapped up in each other's company. What was this witch doing to me? She makes me crazy I swear. Somehow, her legs had ended up on either side of my lap. I held onto her hips and slipped my thumbs under her shirt and rubbed slow circles against the heated skin over her hipbones. I broke from our kissed and looked into her eyes and found her caramel orbs swirling with passion. She gave me a dopey grin that I couldn't help but kiss away. Her arms snaked around my neck and played with the hair at the nape of my neck, sending splendid shivers down my spine.

I pulled her hips down and she gasped. I broke the kiss and went to her neck, licking, suckling, nibbling, up and down. I stopped at her pulse point at sucked, drawing an intoxicating sigh from her. She started to grind on my ever-present arousal and we both gave a breathy moan. She giggled nervously. Then it occurred to me that I could very well be the only guy who's ever been in this position with her. This made me pause.

"Is everything alright?" She asked smile fading.

"Everything is wonderful, Kitten." She smiled at the name. "I just want to do this right. You mean a lot more to me than a quick shag."

"You mean a lot to me too, Sirius." I kissed her. I broke it before it could become too heated.

"I want to go slow with you, and savor every moment we have." She smiled. "And if we don't stop now, I'm afraid I might lose all control over those morals." She chuckled and moved off my lap. She rested her head on my chest and I protectively wrapped my arms around her. We sat there just enjoying each other's company for a long time.

She was about to fall asleep when I asked her a question that's been plaguing my mind since she told me her story.

"What happened to Regulus?" I whispered.

"Hmm?" She asked sleepily.

"After I went to Azkaban and Voldemort had been temporarily defeated… What happened to Reggie?"

She turned to face me. "January 1979, Regulus was said to be killed by Voldemort himself." My heart broke. "It wasn't Voldemort, Sirius, Regulus had defected and he tried to fight Voldemort from the inside. He found a horcrux, but in retrieving it, Voldemort's defenses killed him."

I was placated by the fact he'd changed sides in the end but his death still hurt. She touched my face and wiped away a tear I didn't know had fallen.

"He'll live. We'll go with him to get the horcrux. He'll fight with us and we'll protect him." I nodded and gave her a small smile.

"My beautiful witch." I murmured into her hair as I held her closer.

"My handsome Snuffles."

"What the hell's a Snuffles?" I asked her but she had already fallen asleep. I chuckled and conjured up a blanket and draped it over us. I held her close and quickly followed her into a blissful sleep.


A/N: Hermione didn't break the Vow because the Marauders already knew she was a time traveler (same with Snape). That's why the vow is worded the way it is, so Hermione could talk and change things while Dumbledore is blissfully unaware.

I really don't like this chapter. I'll probably edit the shit out of it, I dunno. Either way, here's a taste. Let me know what you think, yeah? Maybe throw me some suggestions on how to improve this trainwreck?