~O~

Sirius conjured a plush red velvet chair in the Gryffindor common room and sat down in it, waiting for Hermione to appear.

He checked his watch. The fifteen year old nerd should be about finished classes right now.

Longingly, he stared as Harry walked past the portrait and into the common room. But Harry, his good-hearted godson, could neither see or hear him.

Sirius sighed. Though he longed to talk to Harry more than anything. He had to wait instead for Harry's more sinful friend, Hermione, to make that communication possible. With the girl's name half-way written in the Book of Condemnation, Sirius considered her at least half-way satanic in his mind. Though Hermione continued to insist she was perfect, flawless, rational...and not at all condemned, Sirius knew otherwise for a fact.

As soon as the brunette walked into the common room, her eyes widened and she quickly dropped them down again, pretending she hadn't seen Sirius.

Sirius smirked and waved at her. "Hello Hermione."

Hermione tried to ignore him and turned instead to her friends. "Did you hear anything Ron? Harry?"

"No," the boys replied and continued playing wizard chess.

Hermione smiled cruelly. "Yup, must've been the draft or something."

Sirius bemoaned that he had to deal with such an annoying, hormonal teenage girl who also hated him.

"Can we be reasonable? You know I need to talk to Harry. And Harry wants to talk to me!"

She flat out ignored him again, then went up the stairs to her room but Sirius followed her.

"You know I can make your life miserable," he warned her. "I'm the devil. Don't think you're immune to my powers just because your Harry's friend! I won't spare you forever."

Hermione furiously turned around to face him once they were alone. "Let me guess," she said primly. "You probably tried to think of different ways to bypass the dimensional barrier, didn't you?

Sirius nodded. Why lie to her? Though his attempts at using written words and the fireplace to talk to Harry had been embarrassing failures.

"And you couldn't, could you?"

Sirius shrugged. "So you really are the brightest witch of your age. Don't hold it against me. I'm just a temp devil!"

Hermione sighed loudly. "Okay I'll talk to you!"

"I don't want to talk to you," Sirius sneered. "I want to talk to Harry!"

Hermione raised her eyebrows sky high. "Well, before I let you talk to Harry, I need to know your intentions and know that you're not going to try to drag Harry down to your level, or have any other BAD influences."

"Oh god." Sirius pinched his the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. He knew Hermione was bossy, but why did Hermione think she was Harry's mother?

Ignoring his irritation, Hermione crashed down onto her bed and threw her book bag open. "I've been doing some reading," she said.

"About what?" Sirius asked boredly, not particularly interested in having a literary conversation or any conversation about books with Hermione...unless it was ironically throwing books at her again.

"About your supposed hell and the devil," Hermione said and peeled open a large tome with a black cover.

"Oh good," he replied. "I wouldn't expect reading any less satanic from you!"

Hermione shrugged off his insult. "Unlike you, I like to inform myself. I find education an immeasurable tool. It said in most of the books to not trust the devil or anyone claiming to the devil or a demonic spirit."

Sirius rolled his eyes and sat down next to her. "Except you know me, I'm still Sirius. You know I wouldn't harm Harry."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "How do I know that for sure?" She stared at him distrustfully.

Sirius immediately conjured a bottle of aspirin and took a handful. His headache was now full blown. He groaned in frustration, trying not to lose his temper with this confounded girl. "Hermione would you please cut this crap and let me talk to Harry? I have something important to tell him."

"About what?" Hermione asked, again doing that annoying thing of acting like Harry's guardian.

"About Voldemort. He's split his soul!"

"What?" Hermione's jaw slackened. "How is that possible?"

Sirius waved a hand. "Who knows! I haven't figured it out yet, but haven't you asked yourself why Voldemort has been able to come back from the dead so many times? It's because of this."

Hermione nodded and he could see the gears in her brain working. "That would explain a lot..."

"Yeah, read about that next time," Sirius smirked. "Might actually help and waste less time, than not trusting me."

Hermione shook her head. "But how would you know this for sure?"

"A demon told me."

Hermione smirked at Sirius. "And you're going to trust what a demon says? Didn't I tell you the books say not to trust them?"

Sirius had to use all his self-restraint to not send to Hermione to hell right now.

"...The books say not to trust them," he finished the bookworm's sentence. "If you're human. In which case, yeah, they're trying to fuck you ever and send you to hell. However, if you're the devil and the demons work for you, I'd say you can take Tina's word for it."

"Who's Tina?"

"One of my personal favourite demons." Sirius tried to sound as professional a devil as possible.

"Oh you have favourite demons, do you?" Hermione rolled her eyes. "Smart, Sirius."

"Now stop mistrusting me or my demons, and let's go talk to Harry about all this, so he has a heads up on what Voldemort's up to and how we can defeat him."

"Okay," Hermione said reluctantly and got up to follow him downstairs. "I guess you have to take help from wherever you get it, even hell." She shuddered. "There's still strong evidence to prove that you should never trust anything a demonic entity or devil says."

Sirius rolled his eyes. He got a feeling, Hermione just liked to feel special and control the situation, more than her stated purpose of protecting Harry. "Alright, Hermione, if you say so."

~O~

They went downstairs and Harry smiled widely when Hermione told him that Sirius was there. Then she used the Speakerphone Spell so they could talk.

"I missed you," Harry said, his green eyes slightly moist. "I keep expecting you to write letters or show up in the fireplace. But you're really here, aren't you?"

Sirius felt more emotional than was comfortable for a satanic being. "I missed you too Harry. And while I can't do those things anymore, I'm not going anywhere. I'm here for you as much as I was before. You're not going to be hurt again."

Harry nodded.

The boy then looked up blankly in whatever direction he thought Sirius stood. For he still could not physically see Sirius.

"Did you do something, I mean, terrible, to be the Devil?"

Sirius chuckled. "No, I wish! I'm saving my sinning for killing Voldemort and others like him. I think the devil just liked me and wanted to take a brief break." He sensed his godson was uneasy however. "I hope you're not disappointed in me?"

"No. I mean, not really... but isn't the devil supposed to be evil?" Harry asked.

"I'm not anymore evil now than I was alive, trust me! I'm just the same old Sirius, plus some responsibilities. Like I'm in charge of hell."

Hermione growled then and interrupted their conversation. "I can't believe you're the devil. You? In charge of a full dimension?"

Sirius paused talking to his godson to tell Hermione to piss off.

"Oh sure, don't listen to what I have to say," Hermione crossed her arms and sat back down on the sofa beside Harry, pouting.

"Thank you, Hermione, I prefer you stay silent."

Hermione glared at him.

Since only Hermione could see him, Sirius conjured some flames with a message about hell to taunt her. She stuck out her tongue at him but got the message loud and clear.

Over the next half hour, Sirius explained everything to Harry, mostly about his job and Voldemort's activities, as well as many other things. With only a few more annoying interruptions from Hermione. Sirius gave her side eye and she reluctantly kept her mouth shut. She went back to reading her book and listening to their conversation.

"I don't know," Harry said pensively. "Why wouldn't anyone have told me this before? Why didn't Dumbledore tell me?"

Sirius thought that over. "I can't imagine why either. I'd assume a wizard as great as Dumbledore too would've known...but perhaps not. He might not have had the far reaching abilities I now have as the devil to find out."

Hermione interrupted them. "Uhm, Sirius, even as the devil, I doubt you are as great a wizard as Dumbledore."

Sirius narrowed his eyes at her. "Uhm, Hermione, please be quiet. Or I'll send you to hell."

But Harry spoke up. "No, I think she may have a point, Sirius. If Voldemort has done this to his soul, I'm sure Dumbledore would know about it or at least the magic Voldemort might've used to make it possible."

"Granted," Sirius leaned back leisurely. "We could just stop speculating and Hermione can accompany me so we can talk to Dumbledore directly?"

Hermione did not appear to relish this idea. "I'd rather not go if you're going to embarrass or harass our headmaster," she said.

"Me harass Dumbledore?" Sirius laughed. "Give me a break, Hermione, I practically owe my life to that man. Besides, I have great respect for Dumbledore."

"I should hope so." Hermione closed the book she was reading. "Where's Ron?"

"He went down to the kitchen," Harry said. "I think he might've got hungry again. He uses my invisibility cloak to get midnight snacks from the kitchen."

Sirius chuckled. "Brilliant!" He checked his watch. "As much as I'd like to stay and wait for Ron to stop his gluttony and come back, we'll have to go without him. I am on a tight schedule in hell, if we don't go to Dumbledore's office now, I'll have to leave soon."

"Wait, it's after curfew!" Hermione reminded them of the rules. "Without Harry's invisibility cloak, how are we going to go walking through the halls at night?"

"Or what?" Sirius asked the brunette.

"Or we could lose house points for Gryffindor!" Hermione said in alarm. Sirius briefly wondered how Hermione could sound so worried about losing bloody house points but sounded less worried about going to hell.

"It's true," Harry said. "Maybe we should wait til Ron comes back with the cloak. McGonagall is patrolling the school tonight."

"Not you too, Harry. Honestly you're going to try to delay something this important over losing house points?!" Sirius asked. "C'mon let's go. You can always tell any teacher who stops you that the devil made you do it."

"I'm sure that was the excuse you used, back in the day," Hermione huffed.

"It was, actually," Sirius winked at her. "Let's go. Quickly now!"

They climbed through the portrait of Gryffindor commons, then sped down the hallway with only the dim light of Hermione's wand leading the way.

~o~

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a/n: If you want to find out what happens next, please review! Honestly I have so much fun writing this story but it's been crickets lol! Tell me what you think, I promise the review box doesn't bite! cheers