Despite having had the time to think about how to go about explaining all of this, Hermione didn't even know where to begin. The whole story of her life as a witch, from age 11 to 18, was the reason she was here at this time, but to tell that might be risking too much. She didn't know if her future was still intact or if her telling her story would be the thing to destroy it. She might have been able to trust Dumbledore to allow things to progress as they should, but how could she tell Sirius about what his life would look like, about how he died having barely had a life at all, and expect him to just allow it all to progress that way. Moreover, she didn't really know how she got here. One moment she was on the floor in Malfoy Manor and the next she was on the cold stone floor of the 7th floor corridor.

Finally she came to a conclusion. Looking into the twinkling blue eyes of the Headmaster she squeezed Sirius' hand and spoke. "Before that, Professor, I need to ask. Is my future still there?" For some reason, that question sprung tears to her eyes. As desolate as her future seemed, that was her whole life. Her whole world even.

"That, my dear, I do not know," he said with a regretful sigh. "Time magic is an unpredictable and largely unknown branch of magic. The Time Turners are the most stable of all the known artifacts but even they are closely observed. But, I personally believe that your future is gone. Or will be gone soon. There is no sure way to send you back and the only way to be sure of your future would be for you to stop existing in this one."

At that Sirius let out a low threatening growl from deep in his chest and shuffled closer to her. As if he believed Dumbledore was a step away from killing her.

"The only alternative is that this was always a part of the timeline. As unlikely as that sounds. Time Turners work in loops; you always have to return to the point you left. In any case, telling us your story is the only reasonable course of action."

The shuddering thought of returning to Malfoy Manor nearly had her disassociating from the room she was in. She had to fight the urge to retreat into her mind and stay there. She let the feel of Sirius' hand and the warmth of his hip next to hers anchor her to reality.

She cleared her throat. "In that case, Professor, may I borrow your Pensive?"

With a wave of his wand he conjured the plain silver bowl. With a quick explanation on how to retrieve memories, she extracted the memory in the form of a long, thin, silver string and dropped it in the bowl. She watched her memory swirl in the bowl for a moment, contemplating how such an ugly memory could appear so beautiful in this way.

She looked up at the two men, a sudden unease at them seeing the memory filled her. "Maybe it would be better if I just told you? Or if only you went, Sir?"

Sirius tugged on her hand gently, and looked at her reprovingly. "I'm going to watch it, Kitten. Like it or not." Then, looking towards the elder man they both leant forward into the bowl."

Sirius felt his hand slip from Hermione's as he landed into what looked like a forest. At first he was confused. He took a quick glance at Dumbledore to see him casually observing their surroundings. Then he heard it, the pounding of feet, voices yelling out curses and the sound of those curses landing. He watched as Hermione came running through the trees only to come up to a halt when she saw the dark clad figures appear and cut her off. He could see her panic stricken face as she tried to look for a way out. A boy came barrelling through the trees behind her and before Sirius could even blink, Hermione whipped her wand around and sent a hex his way. The boy landed flat on his back with an ungraceful whump and the dark figures around them used body-bind curses to immobilize the two teens.

"Is that a scar?" One asked. The excitement was palpable in their voices, as more came into the clearing of trees. One carried a bound redheaded boy over his shoulder and another with a jewel encrusted sword in his hand. "We caught Harry Potter, screw taking them to the Ministry, we're going to take them straight to him!"

Harry Potter? Both Sirius and Dumbledore walked forward to look at the face of the boy they were lauding over. While Sirius stayed looking in confusion at the boy, Dumbledore looked over at the sword. His eyebrows rose in a look of genuine surprise.

Sirius couldn't tell what the kid's features were, the skin of his face was so swollen that his eyes were shut. The only thing that Sirius could recognize was the shock of messy black hair on his head. Just like his best friend, James.

"No! It's not him!"

"Shut up!" said one of the men grabbing her by the arm and suddenly the memory faded for a moment only for it to reappear in front of an imposing manor house that had Sirius sucking in a sharp breath of air. Malfoy Manor.

They watched the trio get dragged into the house. There in the manor was Bellatrix. His crazy, cruel cousin. The trepidation he felt about what he knew he was going to see when he entered the memory became an ice cold fear. He knew his cousin had felt her hexes himself throughout his childhood, and this older version he was seeing was so much more unnerving than he ever thought possible. Her hair was wild, and not in the warm way Hermione's was. It coiled around her head and around her face like small snakes, like Medusa in a rage.

"Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, and…" She stopped short, looking unsure at the third teen. "It must be him!" she sang gleefully. She screamed for Narcissa, getting her and a boy who must be her son to deny or confirm the identity of the boy with the swollen face. But, neither seemed sure. They huddled with their patriarch, Lucius Malfoy, in the corner of the room. Their faces hold a shattering facade of calm.

Then she caught sight of the sword and everything else seemed to stop. She stilled, and in that moment she might as well have been Medusa, the whole room felt the undercurrent of deadly magic radiating from the crazed witch. The Malfoy family flinched away. While the kidnappers seemed to rethink their desire for their reward and attempted to slink out.

"Where did you get that sword?" her voice was chilling. Her eyes staring unblinking and wide at the trio. Then the calm broke. "YOU WERE IN MY VAULT!"

"It's fake!" cried Hermione. Unfortunately that brought Bellatrix's focus solely onto the witch. She was trembling. The fear coming off of her in waves. Bellatrix approached her swiftly, gripping her hair and pulling her head back harshly. Staring into her eyes, unblinking for many long minutes until Hermione cried out. The older witch hissed and roughly shoved her head away.

"I think it's time that we talk. Girl to girl," she sneered, getting into her face, wand tip pressing under Hermione's chin. "Put them in the cellar!" A man who seemed strangely familiar to Sirius came up from a dark corner. He was a man who looked like he lost a lot of weight quickly. His skin was sallow on his sagging cheeks, watery blue eyes sunk deep into his face, and his mousy hair was untidy with a large bald spot in the back. He had an odd silver hand. He grabbed the two boys, and dragged them kicking and screaming out of the room, the redhead pleading for them to take him and not her.

It was hard to watch what happened next. Beyond hard to watch. Sirius was white knuckled and his jaw felt ready to snap. It had to have been hours that he watched his cousin scream and yell, and send "CRUSIO!" nonverbal slicing hexes to the young witch on the floor, and agonizingly long bouts of Bellatrix trying to break into Hermione's mind, the room oddly silent except the sound of rattling breaths.

Dumbledore looked grim faced but he bore it stoically. The Malfoy boy seemed bloodless, bordering on green as he watched. Sirius suddenly realized they had probably been schoolmates.

Hermione was sobbing, screaming, repeatedly telling Bellatrix that "the sword was fake that they just found it." "It wasn't them they didn't steal it." The blood around her was pooling the exact way he found her that day on the 7th floor.

It felt unending as he watched Bellatrix let a man with a strong Russian accent have his go.

"Remember me, my sweet?" He leered at her as he used his filthy hands to wrench her thighs apart, squeezing brutally before settling his weight onto her pelvis. "I remember you."

Sirius watched as he groped the sobbing girl. He watched as the man licked the trail of blood from one shoulder up to her neck, his hand making its way up under her shirt to grip her breast. It made him feel sick.

It felt like it wouldn't end. The odd gentleness the mad man would sometimes caress her with almost seemed worse than the violent moments. At least the bruises could be healed. Could be vanished away. The tender kisses along her jaw, the brush of his knuckles down the middle seam of her jeans, could never be removed with anything Madame Pomfrey had on hand.

He desperately wanted out of the memory, wanted to curl up around Hermione and keep her safe. He was almost thankful at the next interruption. A loud bang and stomping footsteps approached. A person Sirius had never met but knew on sight came into view. Fenrir Greyback. The werewolf responsible for his Remus' unending torture. The savage beast of a man, walked in like he owned the place. How has no one killed him by this point?!

"The Dark Lord has been summoned." His voice was hard to understand. It was a guttural growl. More of a beast's voice than man's. His yellow eyes zeroed in on the scene before him and he grinned, and even his teeth were inhuman. He strode over and hovered over them. Hermione's whiskey eyes were blown wide in fear staring up at the creature. "What do we have here?" He asked gleefully, dropping down to nose her neck, sniffing and grazing his teeth dangerously against the soft flesh.

Bellatrix obviously had had enough and walzed over and shoved the werewolf off with her foot and threw a hex at the Russian man. He flew off of Hermione in an ungraceful heap, sputtering indignantly.

"You're useless," she hissed at them. She dropped down to straddle Hermione and got into face again. "Let's try something new shall we?"

As he watched Bellatrix yank Hermione's arm out and with a sinister blade she started carving into the arm on the floor. "You useless, Bitch!" she whispered harshly, inches from the whimpering girl's face. "Tell me how you got into my vault and I'll just kill you now! Filthy little mudblood." Choking sobs escaped Hermione and the high cackling laugh filled the room. "If not I'll let those two have you, and once they've had their fun, your death will be slow and, I expect, entertaining" The laughter continued as the room around them blackened

Hermione must have passed out, because their surroundings came back slowly, blurred and indistinct. Shouts were heard, throughout the room a few bright lights firing overhead and then all of a sudden everything sharpened. She was now being held up by her hair against the crazed witch, the cursed blade pressed harshly against her throat. Beads of blood escaped the spot.

They stood facing an odd group of three teenagers, the two boys and a petite blond girl, and a goblin. The three teens had wands gripped in their hands and Sirius could just make out Bellatrix's wand in the grip of the boy with the still swollen face. The Russian and Greyback stood catty cornered from them, along the walls. Looking just as formidable without their wands.

"Let her go. Now!" Said the redheaded boy, holding his wand out. His face looked like a snarling lion. In fact all three teens had their wands trained on the two witches in the middle of the room.

Bellatrix's laugh came out in a manic glee as she turned the knife downward and poised to drive it downward into Hermione's chest.

At that moment many things happened. All three teens yelled, firing different spells at the pair. Sirius could hear at least one disarming spell coming from the group and watched the Russian man send a wandless curse directly towards the center of the room. A house elf that was dressed in an absurd outfit of multi-colored socks, hats and a fuchsia knitted sweater appeared overhead on the wrought iron chandelier above the pair's head and magically cut it down. It came crashing down on top of Hermione. Bellatrix dove away just in time to get out of the way of the rainbow of spells and iron that collided onto the girl.

The memory went dark again. Then they were in the 7th floor corridor. And Sirius was hovering over her body.

Being ejected out of the memory was jarring. Like he was dropped out of the sky but there had been no falling sensation. Sirius sat for a moment, his eyes glazed and staring at the stone floor. When he looked up, Dumbledore looked contemplative and not nearly as affected as one should have at what they had just witnessed.

"Well, Miss. Granger, it seems there is quite a story leading up to that event." He was now sitting back in a conjured arm chair by Hermione's bed.

"Yes, it's been an eventful 7 years, Sir," she said. She sounded exhausted to Sirius. He looked up at her and observed the slight unfocused look, the slight tremors in her hands, and the stiffness in her shoulders and neck.

"Yes, I would assume so," Dumbledore said, then flicked his wand. A journal appeared on her bedside table along with a quill and a bottle of ink. "You seem to be the kind of person who prefers to organize their thoughts, my dear. I shall come by in a few days and we can begin to go over your story." She nodded, and some of the tension left her shoulders. Seemingly grateful that she didn't have to relive any more trauma for the night. "Mr. Black, I believe it's time for you to return to your dormitory."

Sirius was about to open his mouth and protest when he decided it was better not to argue with his professor. He stood up, giving Hermione's hand a final squeeze and left alongside the Headmaster. They split off, faring each other a goodnight and he walked towards the Gryffindor common room but quickly detoured into a classroom before he got too far. He shifted into his animagus form and trotted out. Careful not to be noticed, he listened for the faint footsteps of the retreating man to disappear before slipping into the infirmary.

Hermione was still sitting up in her bed, staring blankly at the blankets draped over her. Her eyes were wet, but it wasn't the same as when she woke from her memories. This was a look of loss.

Without thinking about the implications or the potential consequences, he trotted over and leapt up onto her bed. She looked startled for a moment, having a black dog that was probably larger than her suddenly on her bed. Sirius worried that he had frightened her. Maybe she had never met Padfoot before and this was a mistake. He tried to minimize his mistake by nosing into her side and giving her the biggest puppy eyes he could.

His worries were for naught though when she slid down to lay on her side, curling against him, one shaking hand reaching up to scratch his furry ear. "Hi Padfoot," she smiled. He huffed contentedly, looking at her. "I'm sorry about making you watch that. I know it must have been hard."

He nipped at her fingers gently in a reproving way and crawled up higher and put his jaw on her bicep, nosing into her hair, noting the smell of the standard soap she was cleaned off in. "Thanks for being here. I'm a stranger to you but, it's like you still know me," she said burying her face into the fur of his neck. He listened to her breathing soften and felt her body relax, letting it lull him to sleep.

When he woke again he found himself right where he fell asleep. It was obviously just turning light out by the gray and orange haze that started filtering through the windows. He whined slightly, knowing he needed to get to Gryffindor tower before he was noticed. He extracted himself from the bed, from under her arm that draped over him, and tried not to grouse about the sudden chill that curled around his neck where her breathing had been. Transforming back into his regular human shape, Sirius carefully tucked the blanket back up around her chin before leaving.

He made his way towards Gryffindor tower, still cautious of any wayward ghost or teacher that could catch him. Occasionally stopping when he thought he heard something scuttling up ahead of him. He scanned the area but didn't see anything suspicious so he kept moving. He felt slightly on edge, but figured that after the nightmarish memory he experienced a few hours ago, he was just skittish.

When he finally got to his common room he carefully made his way to his bed and stripped down to his boxers before crashing on his bed, eager for the last few dregs of sleep he could get before getting on with the day.

The next time Sirius woke wasn't to the gentle sunrise that glinted off of soft curls that his nose was pressed into. No, he woke up to James landing on him. Once the wind returned to his lungs, he groaned. "Really, mate?"

"Come on, Padfoot!" his friend grinned with way too much energy to be natural. Even Pete and Remus, who were sitting up in bed, looked half ready to just flop back down and snooze. "We've got a prank to oversee!"

Suddenly remembering the prank they set up for Snape, Sirius was jolted with a burst of energy.

Grinning, he got out of bed and got himself ready for the day. Not bothering with showering he just pulled his hair up into a messy knot at the back of his head and bounded down with James to the Great Hall for breakfast. Peter and Remus, who weren't far behind, were laughing at the two. After what happened last night, he needed something to get his mind off it.

Snape was already at the Slytherin table, sitting quietly surrounded by a horrid group of his peers. The unease of the wizarding world with the broadening divide of blood purists and those for magical equality didn't end at the doors of Hogwarts, and with the house division it almost fuelled extreme opinions more.

"Should have hexed more than just Snivellus," mumbled James under his breath. Remus just snorted, glancing at the table, watching as Avery laughed at something Mulciber said. "Ah well, we'll think of something later to get the whole lot of 'em."

They went about their breakfast as usual and it wasn't until the last 20 minutes before class was set to begin that they noticed the small commotion start over at the Slytherin table. Snape was squirming uncontrollably. He's hands clamped down under his arms and his legs tense. The whole table looked confused until a second year witch sitting nearby screamed and pointed at Snape's head.

His long greasy hair had turned into a mass of writhing snakes. In fact, all of his hair had turned into snakes. Down to the little fuzz lining his arms. Everyone nearby backed away from him as he stood up and ran out of the Great Hall wriggling the whole way.

There was stunned silence from everyone near the scene for a moment. Then almost at once, everyone roared with laughter.

The Marauders played along. Acting the stunned spectator and laughing with the crowd. They heard whispers, "Do you think all of his hair turned into snakes?" "Of course, did you see how he ran outta here? Blokes, got a little more going on below the belt than usual, I reckon!"

The four troublemakers all grinned at each other, their victory sweetened by the fact the prank couldn't be traced back to them. Sure, Snape would figure it was them, but there wasn't anything he could prove to the teachers.

The day went about as expected afterwards, classes, lunch, sitting by the Black Lake studying while James mooned over Lily and playing with his pilfered snitch, Remus helping Peter with his charms work. Sirius was able to keep his mind off of the memory for the most part by chatting to his friends. It was a calm day despite the way it started. That is until a note appeared under his glass of pumpkin juice at dinner.

Meet me after dinner.

P.S. I enjoy peppermint humbugs

Mood sufficiently dampened, Sirius took as much time at dinner as he could. Unless Dumbledore wanted to talk to him about their prank on Snape, a matter that would have been left up to Prof. McGonagall, Head of Gryfindor, the only thing there was to speak about would be Hermione.

Dread seeped under his skin as he made his way out of the Great Hall and towards the ugly gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's quarters.

Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards to ever live, was someone Sirius had the utmost respect for. Anyone his parents could disdain as much as the Headmaster meant that they were someone that Sirius could see favorably. He had always heard them rail against the man, their complaints about his strange way of speaking in riddles, his muggle loving nature, and the way he was always a step ahead of the rest of them were all things that Sririus admired. Their sneers about him being cunning and manipulative were things that he brushed aside in the belief they were mad that they could never manipulate him insead. Now, however, having seen the callus way he treated Hermione, the glint of interest and intrigue in his eyes when they saw the memory, or his eagerness for her to share her future with them, he couldn't help the growing unease about the man. He looked at her like a chess piece. Did he look at everyone that way?

He still trusted Dumbledore. Trusted that he had the greater good in mind, no matter what. His judgement and foresight had proved to be remarkable on all fronts, and Sirius appreciated that the school was largely regarded as one of the safest places on earth solely for the reason that Albus Dumbledore was Headmaster.

Sirius wondered if he would have ever noticed it if Hermione hadn't appeared. Would he have ever realized that Dumbledore was constantly chasing an ever elusive future of peace? That he would easily ignore the hurt that was right in front of him for an ideal that could probably never fully be reached? He knew war was brewing, the ever growing tensions in the school was just the tip of the iceberg, he knew that there would be sacrifice and casualties, but they weren't there yet.

It unsettled him to think that the kindly old man that had encouraged him as a little boy who didn't know where he belonged, could be so hard.

When he finally made the long trek to the Headmaster's office, he stared into the face of the gargoyle, taking a few breaths and clenching his fists a few times to relieve the tension there. His nerves were heightened. Knowing that he would have to navigate his conversations from here on out with the elder wizard. He couldn't let his trust be taken advantage of nor let his desire to protect blind him.