A light blanket of snow lined Harriette's windowsill. She pulled her old Gryffindor quilt tighter to her body as tiny crystal flakes drifted in through the open window. She stood there looking out over the castle grounds but not at anything in particular. Under her blanket clutched tightly in her fist was the letter Ginevra Potter had sent only a few days prior and scattered across her bed was the rest of her usually hidden memorabilia. She had spent the evening rummaging through her book of secrets, reading the letters from Ginny, Harry, and even the one from Naos' biological mother.

Since seeing those pictures in Sirius' room, guilt had weighed heavily on her heart. Sirius needed to know his son and Naos needed to know who his family was. Not to mention, her family needed her. Ginny's words read over and over in her mind: You are needed. Perhaps she needed them. She missed everyone so much and she was tired of being alone. But she wasn't ready. Would she ever be? Not until Bellatrix was gone for good. That's what she kept telling herself anyways.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and turned back to her bed, Pictures of Naos growing up lay sprawled out across her pillow along with the new picture she had gotten from Harry and one of Sirius she had taken from his childhood home so long ago. He was just a boy, barely older than Naos is now. They had the same shaggy black hair and the same grey eyes, but Sirius' face wasn't as round. Harriette imagined that Naos got his heart shaped face and button nose from his Dahlia.

Footsteps echoed from the infirmary through her closed chamber door. Naos was here. She had sent for him earlier to finally tell him everything, to tell him the truth. Harriette sucked in a ragged breath and slowly released it but it didn't ease the knot in her stomach that crept up on her with Naos' presence. Dread filled her core; she didn't think this day would come so soon, but then again, it may be long overdue. She worried about how he would take her deception. Would he understand, or would he despise her? She chewed the inside of her cheek, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes again. Her door creaked open.

"Mom?" She hadn't quite composed herself so she didn't turn around to meet him; she didn't want him to see her crying.

"Come in, Naos." she said rather sullenly. She heard the door shut and the shuffle of his feet as he crossed the room to stand beside her. She didn't say anything but watched as he noticed all of the letters and pictures on the bed. He picked up the picture of Harry with Ginny and their children. She studied his face as he did so. His angular brows furrowed as his button nose scrunched upward. He picked up another photograph. This one was of Harry, Ron, and herself during the summer between third and fourth year. Molly Weasley had taken it just before they left for the Quidditch World Cup. Of course, she looked different. She looked like her true self; lighter, bushier hair, and brown eyes compared to her now sleek, black hair and grey eyes to match Naos'.

"I know that is Harry Potter, but who are these other two?" Naos looked up at her. Harriette smiled down at him, but it didn't quite meet her eyes. She was very fond of that picture. It was the happiest they had ever been. It was the year Sirius returned to Harry's life and Voldemort hadn't yet risen.

"Those are his best friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger."

"Well, why do you have it?" his shaggy black hair gently shifted as he tilted his head.

"Come, sit down."

She cleared an area of the bed for them both to sit. Krishna jumped off the bed from the intrusion and slinked away. Harriette found a comfortable spot leaning against her pillows, while Naos sat cross-legged towards the foot of the bed. With the photos and letters gathered in her hand, she took another deep breath. You can do this. He needs this.

"Mom?"

She silently chewed the inside of her cheek; a bad habit that she often didn't notice herself doing while nervous. She finally replied, "I have something very important to share with you, but before I do I want you to know that there was never a moment that I didn't love you." She cleared away the lump forming in her throat.

"From the moment I laid eyes on you and held you in my arms, I have loved you completely. And what I did was to protect you. You may not understand it now, and you may be mad at me. And that is okay."

"You are being so weird, mom." she shifted in the bed as the knot in her stomach grew. Spilling the truth was harder than she imagined.

"Well, there is no easy way to say this Naos, so I am just going to speak plainly. Okay?" His face contorted with confusion but he nodded. He fiddled with a corner of her quilt. The small tick made her lose her concentration, and she was no longer certain of where to begin. Finally, she decided to start with the simplest part of the whole situation.

"I am not Harriette Janine Dahl, you are not Naos Osiris Dahl, and I am not your biological mother."

"But...wait...what?"

"My real name is Hermione Jean Granger and I am the girl in that photograph."

"That can't be!"

"It is."

"But how?"

She took another long shaky breath and began to tell him of her past. In hindsight, she shouldn't have sheltered him so much from everything. It took a long while to explain the history of Harry and Voldemort and her part in the events that led to the fall of the Dark Lord. Naos had many questions and he was surprisingly patient with her. He actually seemed eager to hear the story but it probably would have saved a lot of time if she had shared her memories as stories while he was growing up.

"-and then one day, a beautiful black haired baby was left on a doorstep to be given to his father. That baby was you."

Naos' jaw was slack and his eyes were wide as he listened to her. She shuffled through the portraits and letters in her hand until she found the letter from Dahlia and handed it to Naos to read. She watched as he quickly finished the letter and his eyes widened even further.

"Sirius? As in Professor Black? He is my dad?" Harriette nodded. "But I don't understand. You just said he had died!"

"He did. I do not know how he came back, but he had fallen through a veil in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic during what would have been my seventh year of school here at Hogwarts."

"A veil? How could a piece of fabric have killed him?" Naos interjected.

" It wasn't just a piece of fabric. It is quite hard to explain, but the veil acts like a gateway to death. From my understanding there is not much anyone comprehends about it, which is why it was in the Department of Mysteries, because it is a mystery."

"Well how did you become my mom?"

"I offered to take you since it wasn't possible for anyone else to. You remember me telling you about Kingsley Shacklebolt?"

"He was the man who helped us escape to America."

"Correct. He helped me adopt you and gave us passports to North America."

Naos leaned back against the bedpost, staring at the tattered parchment in his hands. The cackling of the fireplace was the only sound heard while they sat in silence. It was a lot for any one person to take in, especially for a young boy. She chewed the inside of her lip again and picked at the red and gold quilt that now sat on her lap. She couldn't help the nervousness she felt while watching Naos as he mulled everything over.

"So I am Naos Osiris Black?" He finally spoke, looking up from the letter.

"Orion is your true middle name, the same as your father's." Sadness filled his eyes. "What is it honey?" she asked.

"He doesn't know, does he? That he is my father?"

"I haven't told him yet. I didn't even know he was alive until we came here." She admitted. He picked up the picture of Sirius and ran a finger down the edge of it. Her heart grew heavy for her son. She knew he had longed to meet his father and now that he knew who he was, he couldn't reach out to him, to get to know him as a father should.

"Naos, there is nothing my heart desires more than for you to be in his life as his son but there is one other thing I need to tell you. Remember the reason I took you to North America?"

"Because of Bellatrix?"

"Yes. She is vile, and dangerous. And I saw her last weekend in London."

"You did?"

"I did, and this is why we can't come out of hiding yet, okay? It's still too risky. But the Ministry knows she has been seen and hopefully soon they find her and arrest her. Until then, our identities must remain secret. Promise me you won't tell anyone?" Harriette pleaded.

"I promise." She opened her arms to him and he climbed across the bed, settling into her arms. She held him close as silent tears streamed down her face. How she wished that he could have a completely normal and happy childhood. She tried her best to raise him happy and carefree but the past somehow came back to haunt them.

It had only been a few hours since an owl had delivered her anxiously awaited book and Harriette was already fifteen chapters into reading it; Sirius' autobiography. When she first opened it, she spent a good few minutes admiring the cover, but eventually she flipped the delicious portrait out of sight and in no time she found nearly halfway done. She had ordered the book by mail several days ago after her return from London, figuring it would be the simplest way for her to find out more information about Sirius' return from the veil instead of combing through piles of old Daily Prophet newspapers.

She lay on her stomach on a bed of pillows and quilts, reading frantically by the light of the fireplace. Only the sound of pages turning and the cackling of the fire could be heard. Every once in a while she would whisper her astonishment to the empty room. She just started reading about the small battle at the Ministry of Magic. This was the section she was most anxious to read. She skimmed past the major points as she herself had been there. She knew everything that had happened that night and there really wasn't a reason to read it. The crisp paper made a gentle swish sound as she rubbed her finger down the corner to turn to the next page. She read:

"I entered a room I had never been before and that is where I found my godson and his mates surrounded by the masked Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy towered over him and I felt enraged. Soon swirls of black and white mist swirled around the room as Death Eaters and members of the Order of the Phoenix battled. The children had been pulled away from harm by some of the other members and at one point I remember fighting my cousin, Bellatrix LeStrange. She taunted me with silly words while hurling curses and hexes at me. I fought back while blocking my godson from the spells. And then, I became distracted with my overconfidence. A spell hit me directly in the chest. I am unsure of which spell it was. I just remember a flash of red and the next moment felt as if ages had gone by as I slowly drifted into the Mysterious Veil."

Harriette closed her eyes as a tear crept down her cheek. This was one of the more pivotal moments in her time during the war; the first being when Cedric Diggory died. Watching Harry lose someone so close to him that he hadn't known but a few short years broke her heart but not as much as it broke him. She felt helpless, unable to comfort him when he needed it the most. It was a very troubling time in their lives. She wiped away her tears before they could fall to the fresh pages and ruin them and continued on.

"I felt absolutely nothing. I couldn't think. I couldn't exist. I had absolutely no consciousness while being in the veil. I don't even know if I 'was.' I fell into the Veil, and then I awoke in St. Mungo's surrounded by healers and members of the Wizengamot. From my point of view it had seemed like no time had passed at all. I was confused. I thought perhaps I was knocked unconscious for a bit. After various tests and several dumbfounded faces later I was finally informed that it had been nine years since I fell into the Veil and I hadn't aged a day, either physically or mentally.

Nine years? Could you imagine? I experienced it and still can't comprehend that. I was questioned over and over by many different people, mainly those who worked in the Death Chamber. To this day no one knows why I was suddenly released from the edge of death. It is quite the mystery."

Harriette closed the book and the cover of Sirius looked at her with a smoldering gaze. Nine years, Merlin! She rose up to sit on her knees. If Sirius fell through the Veil in nineteen ninety-seven and spent nine years in Limbo, that would mean he was only about twelve years her senior now. She was quite versed in the complexity of time as she manipulated it to take several classes in her third year. Sirius lost time as he was suspended in Limbo, whereas Harriette had gained it, only a little over a week's worth of time so she didn't really count it as far as aging was concerned.

Now that she knew when Sirius had come back from the veil, his autobiography had satisfied her curiosity about it and she could scratch it off her "to-research" list. She was still curious as to how and why he was released but since those questions couldn't be answered anytime soon, she snuggled back into the pillows on the floor and continued reading her new book. She couldn't just start a book and not finish it after all. Plus, it was research, she justified to herself. She opened the book and turned to the next page, continuing from where she left off.