Author's Note. Special acknowledgement to "Hells", who pointed out that if Hermione is Helena, the previous 4 books don't quite support this possibility. Let me just say: I know. =) BUT, I'm hoping that as the character of Helena develops you'll see more believability in my theory. Until then, I hope suspense of disbelief is possible.

As for my little theory of 'Hermione as the secret Hero of all the Harry Potter universe', reconsider it in light of a few facts about Hermione that just don't hold up if we're to believe she's actually just an ordinary witch (in my twisted opinion!). ;)

(warning: quite spoilery and un-apologetically tounge in cheek)

1) Hermione's practically forced attempts to befriend Henry in book one
2) Hermione's unshakable belief in Severus Snape's innocence, despite all evidence otherwise
3) The fact that she ALWAYS has the answers
4) Once petrified in book two, she had that definition of "basalisk" in her hand, which you know just -reeks- of a setup!
5) After said petrification, all those accusing Harry of being Slytherin's Heir suddenly shut their collective mouth. (Hmmm....)
6) The time-turner in book three. That's powerful stuff! Why give it to a student just to do extra studies? Funny what a useful tool it turned out to be, too
7) Hermione's knowledge of Lupin's lycanthropy before everyone else (Remember those shouts of "I trusted you!" at the shreiking shack? What firey passion! Surely that knowledge stemmed from something other than Snape's silly werewolf essay!)
8) Dumbledore's instructions to save Sirius, which were directed at the one and only H.G.
9) The fact she had to teach the dunderheaded Harry Potter practically EVERY spell and charm in the book before he could survive the Tri-Wizard tournament.
10) Moody's comment to Hermione about how she ought to be an Auror (yeah, he said the same thing to Ron...just to make the goon feel better, though!)
11) During Moody's demonstration of "Crucio", Hermione was visably concerned about Neville's respose, as if she knew the cause of it (And remember, the Longbottoms were....TA-DA! Aurors!)
12) Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., which....(hold on there, I'm getting ahead of myself! Yeah, even THAT little Hermione-ism will eventually be explained by yours truly.)

Sure, Hermione made a few slip-ups in the beginning, but don't forget that (as chapter one indicates) the effects of that VesClotho can be a real bitch, too.

Anyway, enough with the long ramblings. We're now back to the present-day Hogwarts, circa Potter and gang's 6th year. Please respond on the progress of the story!

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I own nothing! Nada! It's all J.K. Rowlings, etc, etc.

Mine Protector
Chapter 5: "No More Than This of Me"

"There is a man of me that sows.
There is a woman of me that reaps.
One for good,
And one for fair,
And they cannot find me anywhere.
Father and Mother, shadowy ancestry,
Can you make no more than this of me?"

-Laura (Riding) Jackson, "Mortal"


Hermione had to find Dumbledore, and *fast*.

But one quick survey of the school entrance told her that was going to be impossible. Throngs of students were gathered in the passage that led to the Great Hall, calling out to one another and taking their time to chat before heading to their house tables. She had no choice but to let herself be pushed along with the crowd like everyone else.

Then she spotted both McGonagall and Dumbledore; they were greeting students at the entrance to the great hall, one on each side. Dumbledore was looking especially cheerfull in robes of royal purple, and he was offering animated "hellos!" to each passing student.

That did it. She would have to do something drastic to get his attention. For now, though, she could only trundle along with the crowd--all of whom were taking far, far too long to get going, in her opinion. She worked her way to the edge of them a bit, so that she would be near Dumbledore's side when she met with the door.

"Where you going, Hermione?" Ron called from her other side. She ignored him.

Dumbledore saw her approach and looked at her expectantly, even while managing to say to others: "Welcome back Mr. Creevy.... My, looks like you've been out in the sun this summer, Miss Brown!"

"Good to see you again, Professor," Hermione said, her voice a shade higher than the students who were buzzing around her. She used her two index fingers to swipe a deliberate path across her forehead, as if clearing away beads of sweat.

"So very good to see you, Miss Granger", the old wizard said, his face pleasant, and Hermione was relieved when he used two fingers to innocently scratch at his temple.

Once seated at Griffyndor table, everyone continued to gossip and speak casually, aware that it would be a while yet before the first-years arrived to be sorted. Before she could even be settled in her seat, though, Hermione was approached by Dumbledore, who swept in close and said, quietly, "Please see me in the west corridor right away, Miss Granger," then swooped away just as quickly.

Harry looked faintly alarmed. "That sounded important, Herm. You're not in trouble, are you?"

Ron snickered at his words, but Hermione only brushed a few raindrops from her coat, looking unworried. "I expect it's just some last minute prefect business he wants to pass on to me," she said, then rose up to leave and meet Dumbledore. "Fill me in on the sorting when I get back." And with that, she hurried away.

She had to walk a long way down the empty west corridor before she met the headmaster. He was standing beneath a candlabra, near the tunnel that led to the dungeons. At her approaching figure, he spoke: "I received your signal in the hall. Has something happened?"

She passed him the parchment wordlessly, and he read it aloud by the light of the candles. "I know you're not who you say you are...."

God, hearing him say those words actually chilled her. But Dumbledore himself seemed only mildly concerned.

"Where did you find this, Hermione?" The old wizard was perfectly capable of using her real name in private and her false name in public without ever having a slip-up, but sometime during Harry's second year she had asked him to not call her Helena anymore. It made it too difficult for her to keep her thoughts straight.

"Coiled around a piece of my luggage," she answered, then explained, "I moved it to a different car when I boarded, so it happened to be out of my sight for several hours..." Finally, she let the worry she felt surface: "My duffle says 'Granger' on the side, Professor. The note had to be for me."

Dumbledore fingered the parchment thoughfully. "Perhaps," he said. "But whoever wrote it seems to be fairly unsure as to what 'you are', exactly; as of now they seem to be voicing a mere suspicion."

"I can't afford a suspicion," she said evenly. "Even if it is just from a student."

"Still, the note doesn't appear threatening," he insisted. "I urge you to go on as planned, Hermione. But keep me posted if anything else of this nature shows up...no matter how small it seems."

She nodded. It didn't seem that there was much more either could do, afterall. Dumbledore moved as if to head back to the entrance hall, but she put a hand on his arm to pause him. She had one more bone to pick with the man.

"You should have told me Sirius would be here," she said, her voice lowered, but not quite accusitory.

"I believe I sent you an owl at the end of the month, did I not?" But Hermione thought she saw a flicker of guilt in his eyes. He knew she was not pleased.

"You know what I mean," she said simply. And what she did mean was that he should have discussed the matter with her on the very day the notion to approach Black for a teaching job had entered his mind. Having Sirius around would, on one hand, make her job easier--the man was sure to keep his eye on Harry's every move. But it didn't change the fact that seeing him would make it difficult for her to forget her own self and her past; and if someone out there really *did* suspect she wasn't what she seemed, she certainly couldn't afford to slip up now. She should have been told, been given more time to prepare.

"I assure you I had little choice." He spoke in a tone that she had learned, over the years, not to question. "The signs are near, Hermione, and we must protect ourselves."

She voiced her agreement softly, letting him know she understood. Her squeezed her shoulder briefly, then with a swirl of his robes turned and was marching back to the Great Hall, ready to give the first years their welcome.

---

Why oh why couldn't prefects have private rooms? Hermione wondered, certainly not for the first time, if she would be able to stand another year rooming with Lavender and Parvati. Prefects had 24-hour access to fancy private baths, and a study lounge that was stocked with gourmet food and drink round the clock, but only the Head Boy and Head Girl received private sleeping quarters. So she was once again stuck with Thing 1 and Thing 2, who were trading their silk nighties back and forth at the moment, trying to decide what to wear to bed. Parvati herself had just wriggled into a aqua, lace-trimmed camisole and matching boy-cut panties, and was pretending to check the fit of them before the full-length mirror, quite obviously pleased with her reflection. Lavender, on the other hand, was already perched on the edge of her bed in a little floaty pegnoir, spritzing perfume onto her pulse-points.

Hermione made a great, rustley business of pulling a high-necked, scratchy flannel nightgown from her trunk, and, unable to resist, shook it out vigiorously--it smelled faintly of mothballs-- and yanked it over her head without a shred of grace.

Lavender wrinkled her nose. "Hermione, won't you roast in that? It's still practically summer out!"

Hermione begrundingly thought that she had a point, but made no move to change out of the nightgown. She didn't know if it was the VesClotho that made her feel sixteen and this stubborn, or if she was simply rebelling against the "It Girls" because she had, in her day, bowed and smiled for the approval of their type.

Parvati had stoped looking at her reflection and searched out Hermione, who was on her bed in her nunnish-nightgown, busy sharpening quills. "Did you see Viktor Krum this summer, Mione?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral.

Hermione paused, pen-knife still in hand. "Why do you ask?" she retorted, feeling not at all up for this kind of ridiculous talk.

Lavender and Parvati exchanged knowing looks. "I guess that means you didn't," Lavender said, doing nothing to halt the triumphant smile that was forming on her face.

"Sure I did," Hermione corrected, tossing her freshly-honed quills into a drawer. "Spent two weeks in July during which we shagged into next Tuesday," she added, sounding entirely unconcerned.

Both Parvati's and Lavendar's eyes widened in disbelief. "You're kidding," Parvati finally said.

Hermione's only reply was to pull her bed-curtains closed.

---

It shoudn't have bugged her, she knew. -What do those two twits know about sex, anyway?...- she mused, tugging the bed covers around her. Not that she herself was any expert. She had lost her virginity to Cy Jordan during the winter holidays of her seventh year, tipsy on eggnog and brandy-filled chocolates, but the years following that had been bone-clean of anything remotely resembling love *or* sheer indulgence.

Of course, it was a little hard to convince dazzlers like Oliver Wood that you were really a sloe-eyed trollop once freed of your eleven-year-old-girl disguise. And now that she was technically older than all of the Hogwart's student body, it was hard to find even the seventh-years sexy. She had lucked out a little with Krum, who had been eighteen when her true age had been nearly twenty-one (though he'd thought her only fourteen at the time, which made him seem just a tiny bit pervish). And it was true that she *had* shagged him into next Tuesday--but that had been over a year ago when she'd visited him in Romania. For a solid week they'd stayed up in the tower room of his family's old manor, and Krum, though younger, had taught her more than a thing or two (no doubt due to years of practice with Quidditch groupies). He had possessed enormous and careful hands, and his gaze was dark and penetrating enough to make her feel as if her insides had shriveled. In a good way, of course.

But at the end of that wonderful, steamy week, she decided that having a relationship with such a high-profile individual wasn't possible. Her duty to Dumbledore and the circle came first, and being a close friend of Harry's made her visible enough as it was (she recalled, in horror, the batch of howlers that she'd received after Rita Skeeter had written that news-story about her). When she had broken it off with Krum, she had bowed her head shyly and told him that the age difference in them was too great for her to feel comfortable in a serious relationship. He had seemed geniunely hurt, holding her to his chest in his wide embrace that lasted several minutes before agreeing to say goodbye. She had felt bad, too, but had told the truth about the age difference.

He might have known more about sex, but in every other concern, she had felt almost twenty years older.

-If you carry on like this much longer, you'll never be able to connect with another human being again...- a little voice in her mind said, and she pushed it away. "Just because I didn't love Krum back doesn't mean I'm incapable of connection with another person!- she argued, feeling as she often did--as if she were the referree between two people who were bent on destroying each other: Helena and Hemione.

Besides, she'd had a lot on her mind when she visited Krum.

Voldemort had just risen, creating havoc in the ministry. She had failed to protect Harry Potter from harm's way, even though the answers had been right under her nose the entire time. And Cedric Diggory was dead.

-I came so close- she thought, and eyes stung over involuntarily.

After the night of Ireland's victory at the World Quidditch Cup, she'd seen the dark mark burst into the sky for the first time since her parents murder. Harry and Ron had been confused that she'd known what the mark meant (she told them she'd read of it in a book--one of the handiest things about being Hermione Granger was that she could have all the answers and blame them on undeniable bookishness), but they knew enough to realize that the skull wasn't pleasant.

Weeks later, when she spotted Bartimus Crouch's house-elf tending the Gryffindor fire, she'd been instantly suspicious. Why would the same elf accused of creating the dark mark be suddenly employed at Hogwarts? In her quest to search into Crouch's past, she had even created S.P.E.W., which gave her a good excuse to visit the kitchens often. All of the questioning she had put Winky through had done her little good--the elf was loyal to a tee. So loyal, in fact, that Hermione became certain that Crouch must have had plenty to hide.

She became convinced that Bartimus Crouch was behind it all: Harry's name being drawn from the Goblet of Fire, the dark mark, the re-surfacing of the death-eaters...everything.

If only she had known that Crouch's death-eater son was still alive. If only *any* of them had known....

Every day, she wondered if there wasn't something she could have done. Something she had overlooked that might have eventually led her to the right set of answers. She had these same thoughts now, and soon fell into a thin and troubled sleep.

---

The next morning at breakfast the Gryffindor table was uncharacteristically quiet. At the feast last night they had expected to learn the identity of the new Dark Arts teacher, but Dumbledore had told them that the new instructor was away on business and wouldn't arrive until the next morning. The whole of Hogwart's had groaned collectively in dissapointment, but were now unable to concentrate on the platters of eggs and waffles before them, too busy speculating amongst themselves. Harry himself could only think of one person arrogant enough to skip out on the opening feast, and was unhappily imagining the return of Gilderoy Lockheart--with his memory restored, no less.

Only Hermione remained uninterested in their conversation, preferring instead her usual first-day-of-classes breakfast tradition: Reading.

While pretending to listen to Ron go on about the possibility of Lupin's return, Harry watched her from the corner of his gaze. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun, and already a few tendrils had escaped over her forehead. She kept puffing upwards to get them clear of her eyes--a gesture Harry found mesmerizing.

Harry had never had feelings for Hermione in the way that Ron had; she'd always seemed to big-sisterly to view as a 'real' girl. But lately, he thought he was getting the hang of why Ron liked her so much. She was, for one, perfectly unpredictable. For instance, the whole House had been surprised when Hermione had tried out for the Quidditch team last spring. They had admired her efforts, but just assumed she was doing it out of sympathy for Ron and Harry who, as keeper and Captain/seeker, would have a hell of a time losing the two Weasley beaters at once. To their complete and utter shock, Hermione had been *good*.

Using a Nimbus 2002, which she had received that Christmas (only half-heartedly at the time, though Ron had drooled over it), she'd swooped circles around the competition. And if her flying was good, then her beating skills could be described as...well, nothing less that excellent. In fact, Ron had probably said it best when, upon having his collarbone cracked by her perfectly-aimed shot, he shouted (half in pain, half in joy) "Fan-fucking-tablous!" The girl had an aim that made her seem eagle-eyed, and could hit with as much strength as either of the Weasley twins. That had been another one of the surprises; even though Gryffindor had always had a good mix of genders on their Quidditch team, beaters had always been male. Females tended to make better flyers, and therefore better chasers and seekers. Hermione could fly with the best of them, and even though they desperately needed to fill in positions for chaser, too, Harry had seen beater written all over that strong arm of hers. Watching her prowl the sky with that club in her hand, an easy grin on her face, had given him a sort of tingle in his stomach (though arguably, any girl brandishing a club between her hands might have ilicited the same subliminal effect). He was reminded a bit of Cho Chang, who had unfortunatly quit Quidditch after Cedric's death.

"What is it, Harry? Do I have oatmeal on my face or something?" Hermione's voice interuppted his dreamy thoughts. She rubbed at her mouth and nose experimentally, and he was jolted back to earth with a thud.

He was further brought to attention by Dumbledore, who had risen up in his seat and was smiling politely, waiting for everyone to settle down so he could make that morning's announcements. "By my watch..." he began, and everyone promptly shut up. "...our new Dark Arts professor will be arriving any minute now. But before he enters, I'd like to offer a word of explicit warning."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. So maybe it was Lupin, after all.

"Our new professor is a bit..notorious. He has been accused of crimes in the past, and even though his good name was cleared last year, he is--quite unfortunately--still associated with Voldemort in the minds of many wizards."

Harry gulped. It sounded like....but no, it couldn't be. A swarm of murmuring fanned out around him, and he knew that the rest of the students were thinking the same thing.

"I can assure you, however, that your new Dark Arts instructor is a man that I would trust with my own life," Dumbledore continued, holding up his hands to ward off the buzzing going on at the tables. "Additionally, he has spent much of the past years defending himself and his loved ones against that dark forces." And with that, Dumbledore gave Harry a very pointed look. Harry jumped involuntarily. Could it be true?

Quite suddenly, the Great Hall doors swung open, sending a rush of hot wind into the dining room. By this time everyone had put two and two together, but that didn't stop them from gasping at the sight of Sirius Black.

---

Rather than gasping, Hermione sighed. It was worse than when the imposter Moody had lurched in on his wooden leg, his blue Auror's eye wheeling about in his skull. Heads everywhere were craning to get a better look, and Snape was up front turning a slow shade of vermillion.

She had to admit, though, that Sirius cut an impressive figure as he entered the room, a block of blazing sunlight at his back. He had a pair of vintage motorcycle goggles pushed up over his forehead, keeping his rather shaggy black hair out of his face, which was already dark with stubble. He was tall and trim, and rather than wearing robes, was dressed sharply in light grey trousers and a black, rather snug-fitting knit shirt. A battered, floor-skimming leather trench coat completed the ensemble. He looked, all in all, nothing like a wizard, let alone a professor. On the other hand, he also looked nothing like the starved mad-man he'd been after escaping Azkaban. Judging from the hushed exclamations around her, it was the latter image that everyone had been expecting.

"Sirius!" Harry breathed, his eyes absolutely alight.

-He thinks he's just gotten the family he's always wanted...- Hermione realized, and despite her own frayed nerves at the prospect of facing Black, she felt quite suddenly warm and glad for Harry. Thoughts of Sirius were what had finally given Harry enough hope to conjure a powerful Patronus, after all.

Meanwhile, Sirius was making his way up to Dumbledore's table, his leather coat billowing behind him dramatically. Once up front, he turned to face the student body. "My name is Sirius Black, and I am pleased to be your new teacher," he said simply. "I hope we will have a productive year together." He seemed, aside from his tough-guy image, quite gracious. Even humble, at that. He sat and passed McGonagall a platter of crepes, and she looked absolutely taken with him, fidgiting and even--could it be?--batting her eyelashes a bit.

Hermione narrowed her own eyes in response. She didn't trust him.

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One more note: I know there are people reading this! Do I have to get on my knees and beg for your attention? C'mon and respond! Puhlease? Comments, concerns, questions? I'll take anything! Really!