Thanks to weaselygurl and everyone else who has reviewed!

I don't own anything, if I say I do, that means I've had too much to drink in this little new years day celebration, so ignore me!!! Just kidding! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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A little later, Hermione was still going over the essays, and everyone apart from her, Ron and Harry had disappeared up to their dormitories.

"Ok, write that down. Then add the conclusion I've given you."

"Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I've ever met! And if I'm ever rude to you again-"

"- I'll know you're back to normal! Harry, your is ok except for this bit at the end, I think you must have misheard professor Sinistra, Europa's covered in ice, not mice- Harry?" Hermione said, realising that his attention was not on her, but completely distracted by the fireplace.

"Er – Harry, why are you down there?"

"Because I've just seen Sirius's head in the fire"

"What!!!" Sirius and James said at the same time, almost blowing their cover. If it weren't for the fact that Hermione had just talked at the same time, they would have been discovered.

"Sirius's head? You mean, like when he wanted to talk to you during the Triwizard Tournament-?" Sirius and James looked at each other as Hermione carried on. Triwizard Tournament? Wow!

"-But he wouldn't do that now, it would be too- Sirius!"

James and the young Sirius were given quite a shock. A man with long, shoulder length dark hair was grinning at them from the flames. Apparently they weren't the only ones given a shock; Hermione gasped, and Ron dropped his quill and jumped about a foot into the air. Harry seemed to be the only one comfortable with this, as he had crawled down to the fireplace to talk to Sirius better.

"I was starting to think that you'd got to bed before everyone else had disappeared. I've been checking every hour."

"You've been popping into the fire every hour?" Harry repeated, smile on his face, and James saw the first similarities between their personalities, and began to smile too.

"Just for a few seconds to check if the coast was clear." And then Sirius went into how a first year had seen him, but he had probably looked nothing more than an oddly shaped log. James and Sirius were pleased that the older version of him had yet to loose his daring and plain idiocy. Hermione had added her usual disapproval, and they seemed to be getting on until the topic of conversation had turned to Harry's previous letter.

"You didn't say you'd written to Sirius!"

"I forgot!" and then the conversation had moved to harry concealing the information in the letter, and the uselessness of codes. Sirius then went on to talk about Harry's scar, which neither James nor Sirius seemed to understand- why talk about something so trivial as a scar? What is so special about it, and why had Hermione not told them about its importance. Also, why was harry talking to Sirius about such things that would usually be said to a father, and harry had not mentioned James. Why?

"So you don't think it had anything to do with Umbrige touching me when I was in detention with her?" James mentally congratulated Harry on hearing about him in detention, and Sirius smiled.

"I doubt it, I know her by reputation, and I'm sure she's no Death Eater-"

"She's foul enough to be one!" Harry interjected darkly, subconsciously flexing his fist, which James saw had "I must not tell lies" in pearly white writing, etched into his skin. Quite a severe punishment.

"Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. I know she's a nasty piece of work, though – you should hear Remus talk about her!"

"Does Lupin know her?"

Sirius and James gave a jolt. You should hear Remus talk about her. Moony is alive and is still in good contact with Lupin! And Harry, Ron and Hermione knew him, enough to enquire about him, anyway, even if they didn't know about his secret. That seemed to cheer the two of them up a bit.

"No, but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation that prevents him from getting a job."

So they did know, and they still liked him, still respected him, treated him like a man, not a monster. That took guts, and understanding. James felt proud of Harry, and the friends he had.

"What's she got against werewolves?" Hermione said, angrily, and Sirius nodded, while James said under his breath, so no-one could hear "you go, girl!"

"Scared of them, I expect. Apparently, she loathes part-humans; she campaigned to have merpeople rounded up and tagged last year, too. Imagine wasting your time and energy persecuting merpeople when there are little toerags like Kreacher on the loose!" and the school boy Sirius added "exactly!", then wondered why his older self had commented on him. Hadn't he put that home behind him? Why was he bringing it up, unless he had contact with him later on, and why do that?

Hermione tried to defend Kreacher, but Sirius didn't give her much of a chance.

"So what's Umbridge's lessons like? Is she training you to kill all half-breeds?"

"No!" said Harry bitterly

"All we do is read from the stupid textbook."

"Ah, well, that figures." And Sirius went on to talk about how Dumbledores sources said that the minister of magic thought that he was trying to gather an army to revolt against him, which the younger Sirius found as meaning that the minister was very dumb, and wasn't going to remain in that position for long, which James agreed with in a whisper. The topic of conversation turned to the missing Hagrid, which Harry, Ron and Hermione seemed very concerned about, and James was with them. Hagrid was very big, it was rumoured that he was half-giant, but he was the compete opposite on the inside, he was a soft, cuddly teddy bear.

"When's your next Hogsmeade weekend, anyway? I was thinking, we got away with the dog disguise at the station, didn't we? I thought I could-"

"NO!" Harry and Hermione said, loudly, startling James and Sirius. They wouldn't have ever said no. The trio continued to argue with Sirius about his near escape, and being caught, so Sirius had to give in.

"All right, all right, I've got the point. Just an idea, thought you might like to get together" Sirius said gloomily.

"I would, but I just don't want you chucked back in Azkaban!"

There was a pause. In the young Sirius's head, the words kept reverberating round and round. "Chucked back into Azkaban?" they didn't put people in Azkaban just for steeling a loaf of bread.

"You're less like your father than I thought." Sirius said, his voice cold enough to freeze. "The risk would've been what made it fun for James."

James froze.

"Look-"

"Well id better get going, I can hear Kreacher coming down the stairs. I'll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, them, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?"

Sirius's head disappeared from the fire, taking with it both of the time travellers' stomachs.

Harry got up angrily from the floor, kicked the mantle piece, stubbed his toe, cursed, then with a little goodbye, and went up the stairs to his dormitory. Ron followed, saying that he'd better get some sleep tonight, and that he would try to calm Harry down.

Hermione was the only visible person left. When a voice spoke from behind her, she jumped.

"Azkaban? Your friend, Harry, he said that he didn't want to see me thrown back into… Azkaban?"

"Umm" Hermione said worried. She had not expected the truth to come out like that.

"Well, what did I do? They don't put people in there for trivial things." His voice was very raspy, as though he was trying to suppress a huge amount of emotion, or tears.

"You're not telling us the truth, Hermione. Sirius was in Azkaban. He refereed to me in the past tense. The way you would refer about a dead person. What happened, Hermione? Its connected, I know it is, everything between the two of us is connected! What is going on? Tell us!" James cried desperately, tears starting to creep down his face as he moved to lower himself down into one of the sofas. He had never cried before, not in front of anyone, but this was different. He had just been told he was going to die. Sirius had been told he would go to the most horrible, hellish place imaginable. Both of them wished they hadn't ever come down from the dormitory. Both of them wished they had never came to this time. It had only been some fun, a laugh, nothing more. They didn't want to be told their nightmare futures.

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