Disclaimer: Don't own.

Weight of the World

Chapter 21

Hermione stumbled into the common room, shocked to see that everyone else was still fast asleep. A quick glance at her watch showed her that it was well past their sleep-in time and she sighed, ready to wake them up for the long day ahead of her.

She carefully climbed over the slippery material and made her way to the centre of the room, passing the temptation to stomp on Peter's fingers as she passed and instead, her foot pressed down on something else. She slowly moved her foot, hoping it wasn't something expensive or un-mendable and she saw it was a silver wrapped present, the one that she had passed opening to open up Sirius' instead. She bent down and picked it up, sitting on the table and carefully peeling the spell-o-tape off and ripping the paper she saw it was a chocolate frog. A very squished chocolate frog.

She frowned and turned it over, trying to see if there was any indication about who sent it, but there was nothing. Hermione shrugged to herself and ate a broken piece, letting the chocolate-y taste sooth her taste buds before she started to think of a way to wake everybody up.

"Mmm…Morning," her gaze snapped to Remus, who was moving under his sleeping bag and mound of blankets, his head popping up from the bundle, his hair in total dissary above his head.

"Morning, Remus," she smiled, standing and offering him a hand.

He grasped her hand and she pulled him up with one swift movement, "what time is it?" He asked, rubbing the bag of his neck and trying to stifle a yawn, his dark blue stripy shirt was tight across his chest and Hermione realised that he was actually well-built. She had known, of course, that he must be to be able to handle the transformation from human to werewolf, which is extremely painful, back to human again at the end of this night, he had to be fit.

Which, he undoubtably, was.

"It's half one in the afternoon." Hermione told him, "Lily and Rayne have gone, they were gone when I woke up, about an hour ago," she told him, nodding her head to the empty spaces on the floor.

"Ahh, they have escaped waking up duties, it wouild seem," he yawned again and staggered to the stairs of the boy's dormitories. "Have fun!" He said cheerfully, bounding up the stairs. Hermione felt her hair frizzle with annoyance and stomped her foot, a floorboard under her foot vibrating against James head and he snorted, rolling over and taking most of his cover with him, pulling it over his body and exposing his back. Hermione rolled her eyes as she read the writing "Jingle my bells" across the back in red glitter and lightly kicked his back, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to jar him awake.

"Muffin cakes are not for you," he murmured sleepily, his eye lids dropping again and Hermione lightly giggled.

Arms encircled her waist from behind and she was picked up off the floor. She screamed in surprise and James sat up, wand in hand, and swaying slightly from side to side, his eyes trying to track Hermione as she squealed and giggled, trying to get away from Sirius' grasp, who had a tight hold on her, nuzzling her ear affectionately.

"You know, I am not amused," Megara said, slowly sitting up, her brown hair tangled and knotted and make-up smudged across her face.

"Sorry," Sirius said absently, not even seeming to mean it, his grey eyes fixed on the side of Hermione's face.

"No, your not, you're too caught up in the girl in your arms," Kara piped up, climbing out of her sleeping bag and stretching.

"Will everybody please shut up?" Peter grumbled, burying deeper into the cloth and James staggered to his feet, pointing his wand at Peter's form and muttered a spell under his breath, laughing when a stream of f=cold water erupted from the end of his wand and soaked him. Peter squealed and jumped up, shivering and water dripping from hid clothes and rolling down his skin and Hermione saw a flash of anger and humiliation in his watery eyes as the other around her laughed.

She couldn't believe it, but she felt bad for him.

"You guys are jerks!" He shouted and ran up the stairs, the others increasing their laughter. Hermione chalked this up to an event that turned Peter and made him betray his friends.

"James, that was out of order," Hermione said, elbowing Sirius in the solar plexus lightly, but he got the message and dropped her to her feet, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"I know," James laughed, wiping away a tear from his eye, "but it was funny,"

*****

Sirius and Hermione were walking across the grounds towards the Black lake, their hands entwined and they were talking lightly, about this and that, about everything and nothing and they sat on the shore of the lake, staring out across the inky blackness.

"Hermione," Sirius started, his grey eyes flickering to hers. "I have to ask you something."

"You're not proposing are you?" She asked half seriously and Sirius chuckled.

"Not yet, sweetheart. No, I have to ask…Why are you really here?" Hermione blinked dumbly at him for a few seconds and Sirius felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end.

"I told you," she said slowly, "I got bullied. I decided to leave and come here, where I could actually make friends."

"But you already had friends." He pointed out.

"Yeah, but when coupled with some nasty, cruel Slyth—" she snapped her mouth shut and Sirius's eyes narrowed.

"Slytherin's?" He asked, his grey eyes sweeping over her figure, his mind trying to figure everything out and slip it into place.

"I don't mean Slytherin's." She back tracked, "I don't. The bullies just really remind me of them," she wrapped her arms around her middle and tilted her head back. No matter how much Sirius wanted answers, he decided stop pursuing it.

For today.

*****

December 5 1977

Hermione pulled the bag higher up onto her back, despite it being weightless, it still fell off her shoulder continuously and it annoyed Hermione to no end. She glanced around her, the hallway dark and dank, shadows creeping along the walls, elongated across the uneven stone.

Hermione sighed and walked quicker. She wasn't frightened, just…cautious. Especially since the Marauder's had pulled a trick on the Slytherin's that morning, and they were after revenge. Seeing as she and Lily were dating the two worst offenders, they were targeted as well.

Brilliant.

She was annoyed at herself for staying in the Library so long, and had only left when Madame Pince shoo-ed her out at midnight, calling her crazy and refusing to let her check out a few Transfiguration books until tomorrow morning. Hermione frowned as she thought of the librarian and heard a clatter behind her. Before she knew what she was doing, she spun around, her bag sliding from her shoulder and her wand in front of her, pressing into the chest of whoever had been behind her. Hermione started slightly, not knowing that he had been that close behind her.

"Pettigrew?" She gasped, "why are you following me like a stalker?" She asked, lowering her wand.

"Sorry, Hermione," he answered, his hands behind his back and scuffing his feet across the floor, his shoulder twitching slightly, "but I wasn't following you. I just came back from the kitchens," and he moved his hands from behind his back and showed her the food there, shrunken so he could carry more.

"Oh," she said, her brown eyes travelling to the wall, "well…We should probably go back to the Common Room," she said and lifted her bag off the floor, but she didn't lower her wand.

After minutes of silence and awkwardness, Peter broke the silence, "Why do you hate me?" Hermione stiffened and rolled her shoulders back.

"Because," she said simply, quickening her pace so that he was left behind.

"Because why?" He asked childishly and Hermione felt like banging her head repeatedly against the wall.

"I just d—" before she could finish her sentence, she was hit with a painful headache that made her vision white out, her breathe quicken, and knock her balance off centre. She stumbled into a wall, her wand and bag clattering to the wall and her heart beat sped up and she found herself taking great gulps of air.

"Hermione?" Peter asked fearfully and Hermione felt like she was in a box and the walls were closing in on her and a beeping filled her hearing; continuous, loud and annoying.

"Hermione!" He called but his voice was getting quieter and all Hermione could see was bright white and she whimpered as a pain hit her forehead, right between her eyes. She felt her body involuntarily curl on itself and she was vaguely aware of Peter running away, the food falling to the floor.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know, Mr Potter, step back."

"Step back? I can't leave her Madame Pomfrey, what's happening?"

"I know you're upset, Harry, but you have to let Poppy do her job,"

"Thank you Minerva,"

"Help her,"

"I'm trying…Her heart…It's her heart!"

"Oi! What about her heart? Why aren't you answering me?"

"Calm down, Mr. Potter, or I shall personally throw you out of the Hospital wing,"

"Poppy, come now, he's just panicked…"

"That's no excuse! I need room to work!"

"What are you doing to her?"

"This potion will slow her heart down and the wound on her head has split open again, I'm spelling it stitched again. Satisfied now?"

"Merlin, Hermione, are you okay?" a voice floated into her subconscious and the white faded out as a hand landed on the back of her head, fingers lacing with the bushy curls.

"Of course she isn't okay, James! Can't you see she's obviously in pain? Hermione, sweetheart, tell me what's wrong." Sirius, her brain told her, it was Sirius, he was here, in front of her. Right there.

"Sirius," she gasped, her hand moving foreword and curling into the fabric of his robes and his hand folded over hers, cradling it.

"That's right, love, I'm here. Peter, run to the Hospital wing and tell Madame P we're coming, Remus, go tell the girls were we are, James help me get her there." Sirius barked and Hermione would have found it funny if it didn't feel like her heart was going to explode in her chest.

"Just breathe, Hermione. We're pulling you up now, okay? One…Two…Three," with one swift movement from James and Sirius, Hermione found herself stood up straight, and the whiteness returned. She bent foreword at the waist as a scream ripped through her vocal box at the pain in her head, her heart, her eyes.

"It isn't working!"

"I can see that!"

"God, make her stop screaming!"

"Something in her body is rejecting the potion. The pain is coming full force, Mr. Weasley. We just have to let it run it's course until we can identify what's wrong with her."

"---Shush, Hermione, We are almost there…" Was the last thing she heard before she succumbed to the blackness, the world fading out entirely around her.

*****

The sun streaming threw the windows across Sirius' face roused him from his slumber and he blinked his eyes open lazily, shutting them as the bright sun hit his eyes and he groaned and turned his head so it was hidden from the blinding whiteness of the sun.

It was when he moved his hand down to clutch at his blanket that he realised he was hunched over, and that he had a horrible crick in his back. His brain went into hurried overload, the cogs turning as he tried to picture why he wasn't laid down.

He realised with a gasp, remembering the helplessness that he felt as she screamed in pain and he sat up instantly, his gaze seeking out Hermione, who was laid out on the bed in front of him.

She was pale and her breathing was slightly laboured, but she was much better then when he had first laid eyes on her huddled form against the wall. He sighed and laid his hand over hers, his thumb rubbing circles lightly on her wrist and he shimmied his chair closer to her form.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," he said softly, his voice gravely from sleep, "You just about took ten years off my life," his other hand came up and stroked her curls back from her face, his hand moving down to cup the side of her neck. "Merlin, Hermione." He breathed and hung his head foreword, his hair creating a curtain around his face.

"Mr. Black? Why are you still here?" Madame Pomfrey bustled into the room, her whispy hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, her green eyes looking imploringly at him.

"Couldn't leave her," he shrugged, not removing his hands from her skin.

"Well, be that as it may, I think it's best if you leave," she said, "you have class in forty minutes," she said firmly, looking at the clock on the wall above the double oak doors and Sirius was tempted to fight her, to stay with Hermione, but he knew that she'd sleep the day away.

"Okay, Madame P." He said, standing and leaning foreword, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

He slowly made his way out the room, listening to the Medi-Witch 'hmmm' as she checked out Hermione's prone form. "See you tonight!"

With that, he left the Hospital Wing, heading to the Great Hall.

He decided that he was going to let Hermione tell him in her own time…Not anymore.

Now, he wanted questions answered.

A/N: Okay! Not the best chapter…I hope it wasn't to confusing…Remember, what ever happens to her body in 1997 will happen to her in 1977.

Anyways, I actually got it up when I said I would! Yay me!

Thanks for your reviews guys! I cherish everyone!

Mwah!

Kelly

xxx