The dark shadows crept and lurched in the corners of the room as Harry woke, gasping for breath as if breaking the surface of water a second before drowning. He had been in the throes of a nightmare, one of crashing noises, foul smells, and a sharp, abrasive threat creeping ever closer. It had crippled him, left him unable to render aid. Then he remembered who he'd been dragging his broken body to help in the first place.

"He-mermronie!"

Harry had meant to cry out, but his numb face had slurred his speech like a melting film reel. For a moment he found it mildly amusing, then panic set in. Where was he? Much more importantly, where was Hermione and was she okay? Would he ever be able to speak again? To sing again?

Which would be quite the thing ... as he couldn't sing before! Then someone spoke - from the end of his bed!

"You're awake!" the light male voice squeaked in powerful relief. "Thank Heavens! Hermione will be ever so happy."

"Wah!"

Harry jumped back up the bed, jumped so hard and fast in his shock that he smashed the back of his head into the steel headrest at the top of the cot. He blinked stars from his swimming vision as he tried to get his bearings. He realised that he must be in the Hospital Wing, as the place had a distinctly medical feel to it. Rows of surgical beds and curtain dividers leered out from the darkness. For a moment, Harry realised the dark reality of what Hogwarts needing a hospital wing likely implied about safety at the school, and that brought his attention slamming back to Hermione and her unknown condition.

And her cat ... which had just spoken to him!

"Wah, I don' un-re-stan'," Harry tried again, but his sleep-mussed and potioned state still held him in its grip.

"Here kiddo, drink this. It will make you sound less like an Immore Alley drunk on a Friday night!"

"See-rus!" Harry babbled.

Sirius grinned down at him from the gloom. Harry hadn't even noticed him sitting next to his bed, but he watched now as his Godfather bent over him, uncorked a vial and placed it to his lips. But Sirius paused, and looked sternly at Harry.

"I'll give you this, but you let us talk," Sirius began, gesturing between himself and Crookshanks, who had padded up the bed and perched himself like an ancient Egyptian cat-god at Harry's feet. "Agreed?"

Harry nodded, tilted his head back, then let Sirius tip the potion down his throat. It tasted like almonds, which wasn't bad.

"Better?" Sirius asked after a minute.

"Let's see," Harry tested, working his jaw to test its tautness. "Seems so. I want an explanation ... I know I said I'd let you talk, but not before you tell me how Hermione is. First, before you say anything else."

Sirius grinned at him. "You really like her, don't you?"

"Yes, I like her a lot," Harry replied unabashed. "Now tell me how she is."

"I see you wont be distracted," Sirius smirked. "Hermione is fine. A little shaken, very worried about you, even more cross at the Weasley boy for his stupidity, but she'll be right as rain. We finally got her to go to bed about an hour ago, but not before she made Crookshanks swear on his life to stay with you until she returned in the morning."

Harry turned to look at the fluffy cat. He had Hermione's firm, stubborn expression behind his whiskers. It cheered Harry and he gave him a look of thanks.

"You can talk," Harry blurted out, as much a statement as a question. "I didn't know that."

"There is much about me you do not know," came the solemn reply. "We, Hermione and I, have been holding a great secret from you. Neither of us have wanted to keep you in the dark for so long, but we have been afraid about how you will react. Hermione likes you very much too, in case she hasn't made that clear enough. She is petrified of doing anything that might alienate her from you."

"She is my best friend," Harry agreed, enjoying a cosy bubble of warmth that was spreading across his chest. Then he wrinkled his face in confusion. "The way you are saying 'we', though ... it's very suggestive. Is that part of the secret?"

"It is," Crookshanks replied. "And after what happened with the troll - where you were so badly hurt - Hermione has decided she can no longer go on without telling you the truth."

"But the secret is so fundamental to who she is, to who they are, that Hermione is worried that you wont want to be friends with her when you know it," Sirius took over. "So that's why we are going to tell you for her. To make you understand that this secret changes nothing about the girl you know, or the relationship you are forming together. It's so good for you, Harry ... she is so good for you. I see that already. Remember that when we tell you this."

Harry scoffed. "There isn't anything you could tell me that would make me suddenly dislike Hermione, if that's what you're getting at! Unless it was really evil, and even then I'd just try and turn her to our side. She's my best friend ... and you're not taking that from me. But how do you know about all this?"

Sirius sighed heavily. "For it ties in to my story. Tonight, Harry, I will finally tell you how I helped end the Great Magical Civil War."

Harry gasped and sat up in his expectation, hugging his knees into his chest.

"But first, I should tell you the truth about me," Crookshanks took over. "For I am not Hermione's pet ... I am not even called Crookshanks. My name is Papageno ... and what I am may be difficult for you to understand right away."

"Okay," Harry replied, taking in a steadying breath. "I'm ready."

"It all begins with events at the time of your birth," Sirius continued, sitting down and crossing one knee over the other. "The Great Magical Civil War was started by a wizard named Tom Riddle, who harboured the darkest ambitions - to seize power by force. He was cruel, he was malicious, but he was also powerful. A gifted orator, he drew like-minded people to him - power-thirsty, disillusioned, radical extreme thinkers.

"Riddle became the self-styled Lord Voldemort, his band of followers named themselves the Death Eaters, and Britain was plunged into war.

"For the longest time, it seemed we would lose. And then, a prophecy was made that predicted the downfall of Lord Voldemort, at the hands of a child born at the end of July that year. Voldemort didn't learn of the prophecy until about a year later ... and his heinous solution was to kill ALL magical children born around that time."

Harry shuddered in his pyjamas. "And I was one of those children?"

"You were," Sirius confirmed. "There were at least twelve others at risk besides you, for Voldemort decided to kill all children born in July and early August, just to make a clean job of it. The idea horrified us all, but none more so than your mother, who had made great friends with all the other mothers in her maternity circle. She was the most powerful witch of them all, and was just desperate to do something to help.

"Her solution was as brave as it was dangerous. Your parents decided to use you, to prepare a ritual for when Voldemort came to attack you. Dumbledore helped Lily to perform several illegal curses on Severus Snape, so that he would plant the idea in Voldemort's mind that you were the most likely child of the prophecy, in the hope that you would be targeted first. His hatred and jealousy of your father would make him very motivated to succeed. But Lily's actions would have landed her a life sentence in Azkaban for the crime, such is the depth of its invasive nature."

"So that's why you had to help them go into hiding!" Harry cried. "To keep my Mum from prison!"

"Exactly," Sirius nodded. "I knew I could escape the Dementors in my dog form. Your Mum couldn't have. So we staged their 'death',I went to prison, then slipped back into the Ministry of Magic to wait. Everyone thought I'd killed your parents - and you - on behalf of Voldemort, and Snape even made him believe that his biggest threat was eliminated. Then he suggested Voldemort break into the Ministry to find the Prophecy for himself, and confirm that the child mentioned was you.

"So, we lured him London, into the very bowels of the Ministry of Magic. He saw Lily and James and baby you, alive and well. He tried to cast a Killing Curse at you, but your Mum had been feeding you a special Elixir, which made you pretty much temporarily invincible. The Killing Curse just bounced off you, and your Dad had prepared a clever runic ritual circle - that basically sucked Voldemort's magic from him when it trapped the rebounded spell - then I tackled him to try and wrestle his wand away.

"But I tripped on his cloak and we both fell ... through a Veil that led to another world."

Harry blinked hard as he listened to the story. "By another world I'm guessing you don't mean the Muggle World, or the underworld ... or Disneyworld?"

"No, this was another reality altogether," Sirius explained. "Similar to ours in most ways, but different in just as many. The main difference there to here was that peoples' souls took physical form outside of their bodies. They could talk and think for themselves, but were psychically linked to their human. They were called dæmons ... and were animal formed, as aspects of the human personality."

Sirius looked pointedly at Papageno, and Harry hauled in a startled breath.

"You ... y-you're Hermione's dæmon ... you're her soul!?"

"An aspect of it, yes," Papageno confirmed. "You mentioned how I described us as 'we' earlier. Well, that's because we are one. She and I are the same being. I think what she thinks, know what she knows ... feel what she feels. That's why it took less than a second for me to agree to stay and watch over you while she sleeps."

Harry blushed at that, as though Hermione herself had said it. This was very weird.

"Thank you. Will you tell Hermione how grateful I am .. that she cares enough to leave a bit of her soul here to look after me?"

"If I know, she already knows, too. It will make her sleep that little bit easier."

Harry's head felt wobbly as he tried to process all this.

"Then ... Hermione is from that world, the one you went to? That's the big secret?" Harry asked Sirius, who nodded back. "Okay, that's not anything like as bad as you were making out. I suppose the big question is, why is she here?"

Sirius looked at Papageno again, and a decision was made between them, but Harry had no idea what it was all about.

"We came ... to meet you," Papageno responded calmly.

"Me?" Harry stuttered, genuinely stunned. "Why ... how?"

"A substance called Dust, which infuses and enlightens all living things, told us that a boy in this world needed our help," Papageno explained. "We didn't know who he was, or how we were supposed to help him, or even what he needed help doing. All we knew is that our future lay in this world. So here we are."

Harry's face dropped. "And is that the only reason Hermione is friends with me? To fulfil this destiny, whatever it might be?"

"That is the last reason she is - we are - friends with you!" Papageno cried hotly, leaping up in animated anxiety, his bushy tail erect and pointy. "We think you are the smartest, kindest, best person we've ever met. The fact that you also happen to be this boy we were told about is just a lucky bonus! We were scared, afraid that you might be horrible, mean and cruel. Like people in our world often were to us. That you might tease us, reject us, send us away. But you haven't ... you've accepted us, played with us, been friends with us just because ... and we just love that about you."

Harry scowled deeply, angrily. "People were mean to Hermione? Cruel to her? What people?"

"Girls at our last school," Papageno clarified. "They were jealous of our intelligence, made fun of us for being better than them in our classes. Hermione cried a lot in that world. She hasn't shed one single tear since meeting you! We are so much happier to be here."

"So, just so I've got this right in my head," Harry began sternly. "Hermione was told that I needed her help somehow and, without knowing anything more about it - or me - just ... came? From another world, leaving her life there behind?"

"Yes, pretty much," Papageno nodded.

"But Hermione is afraid now that I wont like her, just because she's from a different place?" Harry queried, still scowling, even more angry at the images in his mind.

"Terrified," Papageno confirmed.

"Right," Harry huffed crossly.

Then he made to get up, but Sirius threw an arm out to stop him.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Sirius demanded. "You're injured, you need rest."

"I can rest later," Harry rebuffed firmly. "Let me go, please."

"Not until you tell me where you're going."

Harry rounded on Sirius with an angry expression. "My best friend is afraid, probably worrying herself sick about what is going on down here, about what I'm thinking. So I'm going to tell her. And if you try and stop me, I'll bite you. Now let me go!"

Sirius stepped back and let Harry pass. He had the good sense to pull a dressing gown and slippers on, for the flagged stone corridors were chilly and breezy at this time of night. Harry hurried along the shadowy passages and staircases, hoping that for once he wouldn't lose his way. This was too important to waste time on a trick doorway.

Thankfully, he found his way to the Gryffindor Common Room without incident. It was almost as if Hogwarts herself was helping him tonight. Harry tumbled through the Portrait Hole and into the room. He was beginning to wonder just how he was going to get into the girls' dormitory, when he heard a sleepy little breath from over near the fire.

Heart tittering in his chest, Harry tiptoed over to the battered old couch. There, curled up with her frizzy hair askew on the armrest, was Hermione looking obscenely peaceful. Harry stared fondly at her for a full minute. He felt a pinprick of a brand new feeling somewhere deep inside him that was totally baffling and scary, but exciting too. He'd never felt it before, and wondered vaguely if it had a name. It was like coming around the corner of a new continent and finding a golden, sandy beach full of the sweetest fruit. Harry wondered how he might get to it.

Then, from behind him, came a whispered 'Psst'.

Harry turned to see Sirius conjure a cosy blanket with his wand. He noticed then that the fire had dwindled to dull embers and a breeze was tickling around from the ancient window frames. Harry took the blanket, edged himself around to the front of the couch and delicately folded it over Hermione, taking great care not to wake her as he tucked the woollen corners around her shoulders.

Then he sat himself down on the floor, his head against the front of the armrest. He could smell the shampoo from Hermione's hair from here.

"This isn't what I'd call rest!" Sirius quirked.

"Sshh!" Harry hissed. "You'll wake her!"

"I thought that's what you wanted to do?"

"Well ... I changed my mind," Harry returned flatly. "But as soon as she wakes up, I want to be right here - to tell her that she's worrying about absolutely nothing. That I'll be her friend no matter what. That I'll never tease her hurtfully, or make her cry, or call her names, or make fun of her for being the cleverest person I'll ever meet. To tell her that she's the cleverest person I'll ever meet - because I don't think I have told her yet - and that I'm lucky to have met her, and that I really wish we'd met sooner, and that I'm really, really glad she came all this way just to meet me. I just hope that'll be enough. Do you think it will be?"

"Just about. But wont you be cold?" Sirius asked with a wry smirk.

"I'm warm enough," Harry replied in a shivery breath.

Then Papageno padded over to him, took a look up at Hermione, then jumped into Harry's lap! Hermione stirred but didn't wake. But it was Sirius' reaction that surprised Harry the most. For he gasped in such shock it was as if he'd seen a ghost ... naked.

"What?" Harry queried. He was cross that all of Sirius' silly noises would wake up Hermione if he wasn't careful.

"Well, it's ... Papageno! He's touching you!"

"So? I've smoothed him before," Harry frowned.

"You have? When?" Sirius breathed out.

"On the train, when we first met," Harry revealed. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that in their world, a dæmon is an aspect of a person's soul ... or didn't you hear that bit?" Sirius whispered in that awestruck tone.

Harry blinked in surprise, as he suddenly began to understand. "So ... if I'm petting Crook - sorry, Papageno - I'm touching Hermione's soul ... is that what you're saying?"

"Essentially," Papageno replied off-handedly, still pawing around on Harry's lap and trying to get comfortable. "And in our world it is seen as strictly taboo, to touch the dæmon of another person. It is like crossing the most intimate of boundaries. You can call me Pap, by the way. If you like, of course."

Harry looked down quizzically at the talking cat in his lap. "If it's such a violation, to touch another's dæmon, why are you sitting on me?"

"Because Hermione doesn't mind it, and neither do I."

Harry gasped deeply. "Hermione doesn't mind ... if I touch her soul?"

"No. She quite likes it, actually," Papageno replied simply. "She thinks you have a very gentle touch. Though it tickles a lot."

Harry looked up at Sirius in abject confusion. What did any of this mean?

Sirius seemed to understand, as he smiled down at them. "One day, I'll explain it properly to you. Or - if it happens that way first - you can tell me all about it!"

"Explain what?" Harry moaned in his confusedness. "How am I supposed to explain this to you? I have no idea what's going on at all! Not a single clue!"

"Just ask your dæmon ... she lives inside you, after all!" Sirius quirked.

Harry drew in another startled breath. "I have a dæmon? What is it?"

"We don't know, but we have been guessing about it," Papageno observed. "We think it's probably some sort of big cat, or a big lizard, or it could be neither. But we suspect it will be something big ... to match your heart."

"Or his mouth!" Sirius teased, as Harry felt his cheeks ignite.

"Shut up, you!" Harry huffed. "You owe me a lot of explaining in the morning. So don't think about running away. You can have my bunk for tonight. Top floor dorm, the one just to the left of the door. Do you remember the way?"

Sirius smirked down at him. "I'm sure it will all come flooding back to me. Though I might give your room-mates a bit of a fright!"

"That'll be a great prank!" Harry grinned. "Just make sure you scare Ron Weasley the most! I want him to think you're a death omen, or something. Really put the willies up him!"

Sirius ruffled his hair and transformed into his dog form before padding up the stairs. Harry waited until Papageno had settled in his lap before closing his eyes and drifting off himself. As soon as Harry's light snores began, Papageno opened one eye and said quietly -

"It's safe now. He's sleeping."

Hermione, who had been awake the whole time and just pretending, opened her eyes and allowed the hugest smile she'd ever worn to bloom across her face. She edged over and, after a trembling pause, placed the shiest, tiniest kiss to the top of Harry's sleepy head. In truth, the touch of her lips was so light that Harry probably wouldn't have felt it even if he'd been fully awake, but it was as brave as Hermione felt she could be just now.

In fact, fighting trolls aside, it was the bravest thing she felt she'd ever done. She smiled at herself as she moved gently away.

"Goodnight, Harry. Sleep tight," she whispered again, before settling down to sleep once more.