Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to Harry Potter or the titles of my chapters 11 onwards
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Chapter 14: Keep the Faith.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Hogwarts 1997
Harry approached the living quarters of his godfather Halloween night, he was alone, a feeling he was slowly becoming acclimatised to. He heard voices from within when he reached the heavy Oak doors and raised his hand to knock, the sound was closely followed by a crash and a muffled grunt from the other side of the door. He pulled his wand from his robes and slowly opened the door.
He gave a small smile at the sight that greeted him. Remus and Sirius were quietly chuckling at the lime-green haired witch on the floor, a broken vase and flowers lying next to her.
"Wotcher Harry," Tonks said in greeting.
"Hey Tonks, what are you doing here?" his green eyes curious.
"Order business," she replied, Harry's face visibly hardened at this and Tonks noticed the abrupt change in his demeanor, "come on Harry, pull up a chair."
He shot Sirius a questioning look to which he received a small smile and nod in approval.
Harry moved to sit next to Remus and took in the piles of paperwork on the desk.
Remus sensed the questions brewing in his neighbour. "Its all on Hermione," he explained. "From her first year to her year with us, and that," he said pointing to a large pile next to Sirius, "is what Sirius here worked on before '81."
"What about that?" Harry asked wide eyed pointing to another large pile of parchment.
"That there is Moony's effort," said Sirius.
Harry turned to face the Werewolf. "You did all that for Hermione?" he asked.
Remus smiled and nodded. "At first I didn't want to because of what I thought Sirius had done, but then I reasoned that that wasn't any fault of Hermione's and she needed someone's help."
"This is your Order business?" Harry asked turning to Tonks.
The metamorphmagus smiled. "We're still questioning Death Eaters, Snape's brewed some veriteserum for us to use, but unfortunately we've had no luck."
"What about Malfoy?" asked Sirius.
"If you mean Malfoy senior, I'm afraid he escaped Azkaban, it seems the Ministry has finally lost control of the Dementors." Tonks replied scowling.
"He escaped?" asked an ashen faced Harry. "There was nothing in the Prophet."
Tonks, Sirius and Remus all scoffed at this.
"There wouldn't be would there?" said the young Auror. "The Ministry doesn't like admitting when something's gone wrong, they had a hard enough time admitting they'd sent an innocent man to Azkaban for twelve years."
Harry offered his godfather a small smile, which the black haired man returned.
"I still think Malfoy has something to do with it." Sirius said stubbornly.
Remus gave Sirius a sad smile. "You always do, the only thing is your usually right, but without him in custody we'll just have to wait till he's found."
Sirius didn't look too happy about this, so Harry spoke up getting off the subject of Malfoy. "I've been reading through some of the time travel books from the library, they might help," he offered.
Sirius nodded. "Good thinking, start with the most recent ones though, I have a funny feeling Hermione read most of them trying to find a way home, unfortunately for her she had no luck. The newer ones might hold a little bit more information."
Harry nodded, pleased to be able to help in finding his best friend.
On the other side of the table Tonks waved her wand and all the documents were neatly filed away.
"I think we'll call it a night," she said mid yawn. "I'll come back tomorrow."
Sirius and Remus nodded and bid the young witch farewell as she grabbed a portkey that would take her back to Grimmauld Place.
Outside rain was lashing at the windows, as the room was suddenly lit up with a bright light.
"One…two…three…four…five…six," Sirius counted. "Hmm not far, should be right on top of us soon," he said as the thunder clapped.
Harry looked over at Remus who'd walked over to a box next to the door and carried it over to Sirius.
"Here Padfoot, I emptied most of your flat about a month after they put you away, I only remembered I had this when we were talking the other day," he said handing Sirius the box. Harry watched curiously as his godfather took the gift from Remus and gingerly opened the top.
Sirius let out a gasp as he pulled his old leather jacket out of the box, the red and gold phoenix displayed proudly on the back.
"Wow," whispered Harry, reaching out to run his fingers across the bird.
"I'd thought I'd lost…..Moony," Sirius choked out looking at his friend, disbelief in his grey eyes. "Remus," he said moving to warmly embrace the werewolf.
"Thank you," he whispered fighting back the tears that threatened to spill.
"You're most welcome Sirius," said Remus returning the embrace.
"You're pretty luck you know," Harry said to Sirius. "I'm surprised she didn't get you a book."
The two men laughed at this and Sirius reached over and ruffled his godson's already messy hair. "I think we may have actually awoken the Marauder in her eventually."
"What?" asked Harry.
"Yes, your little bookworm Hermione actually accompanied us on some of our pranks," explained Sirius, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"You didn't tell me this," protested Harry.
"We're not up to that yet," said Sirius, eyes darkening slightly. "There's a few things that happened before that," he said wandering towards the window and looking out pensively as lightning lit up the grounds below.
"Sirius?" Harry asked but got no response from the Animagus who was intently looking outside the window.
"Padfoot?" Remus said moving towards the dark haired wizard as another bolt of lighting lit up the room.
Sirius didn't respond but walked quickly to the doors, opened them, changed into Padfoot and took off running down the corridor.
Remus and Harry looked quizzically at each other before running after the large black dog. When they reached the entrance hall Padfoot pawed at the large doors. Remus moved to open them, curious as to what had aggravated his friend. Padfoot zoomed out nose to the ground while Remus and Harry kept him in their sight from the warmth of the Entrance Hall.
A few minutes later Padfoot came bounding in drenched, with an object held tightly between his jaws. He proceeded to hightail back to his chambers, Remus and Harry curiously following.
When the pair entered Sirius' room they found him sitting in front of the fire, dripping wet staring at the object in his hands.
Remus moved to sit next to him and looked at the object, a surprised expression gracing his face.
"It that what I think it is?" he asked Sirius as Harry sat on the other side.
"A book?" Harry asked.
"I think the rain must have unearthed it," said Sirius quietly as Remus muttered a spell to dry and restore the tattered book lying in Sirius' hands, "though I'm not entirely sure how it was buried in the first place, here," he said handing Harry A time travelers guide to the way of time. "I believe this is the book Hermione threw out the Gryffindor window, it didn't help her then, maybe it might contain something that can help her now," he said to the messy haired boy next to him.
Harry nodded mutely, accepting the book from his godfather.
"Why are you giving it to me?" he asked.
"Because Harry," Sirius said softly. "I….we," he said pointing to himself and Remus, "have faith in you, if there's anything in that book, you'll be the one to find it."
Harry nodded tears of gratitude in his eyes, "Thank you."
"No, thank you Harry," said Sirius. "For having faith, for not giving up on Hermione, you're a true friend."
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Hogwarts, 1977, boxing day.
Lily streatched contently, and woke as the warm sun streamed down on her face. She sat up and looked around, every bed had a sleeping form in it, with one lump on the floor. It was then she realised with shock that it wasnt her bed she was in. She heard sheets moving from the bed next to her and met the hazel eyes of Hermione, who smiled and moved to join Lily on James' bed dragging her pillow with her.
"What am I...we, doing in here?" she whispered to Hermione not wanting to disturb the boys.
Hermione grinned. "I came up here with the others, you fell asleep downstairs and James didn't want to wake you so he brought you up here."
Lily still looked shocked as she stared at the bushy haired girl in front of her. "He did that for me?" she asked.
Hermione nodded. "Couldn't let you sleep on the couch now could he?"
The girls turned to the ruffling of sheets on the floor next to the bed and giggled at the extremely messy appearance of a certain Mister Potter.
He looked up at the direction of the sound and offered a small smile. "Morning ladies," he said getting up and joining them cautiously; afraid he'd be killed by the redhead that had slept in his bed.
"Don't look so worried James," Lily said. "I'm not going to kill you, besides Hermione was up here all night too so it wasn't like I'd spent a night with you three by myself."
James breathed a sigh of relief at this and sent Hermione an amused look.
"That was not my fault Potter," she said defensively.
Lily looked confused at this and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Uh, Sirius brought me up here one night when he couldn't get me upstairs to our dorm."
Lily looked at Hermione, disbelief written on her face. "So you slept alone in a dorm with four boys, by yourself?"
Hermione nodded. "Blame Sirius."
"Or you could just blame Lily," came the muffled voice of Sirius from Peters bed. "She was the one that disabled our way up your stairs"
"He does have a point," Remus said getting up and joining the conversation.
Lily glared at the two boys. "You shouldn't have been going up there in the first place."
"Not even to take sleeping beauties up to their beds?" James asked.
Lily softened a bit at this. "You know the rules James, boys are not allowed in the girls dorms."
"Honestly Lily, the first time I went up there was to take Hermione up," Sirius explained. "We knew about it but never used it, probably the one rule we didn't break."
Lily looked at the boys in shock, James and Remus nodded to confirm Sirius' confession.
"Well then, I guess I can take the charm back off, but, only if you don't misuse it," she said giving into the pleading faces of James and Sirius.
The boys grinned madly at each other.
"Although, I think you should be punished for at least not telling McGonagall about your little find," Hermione noticed Lily's eyes gleaming mischievously..
"You can't tell McGonagall Lily, she'll make sure we never set a foot on those stairs again," protested Sirius. "Not to mention having to attend detention for the rest of our lives."
"Oh I'm not going to tell McGonagall," she said, stealthily grabbing hold of her pillow, catching Hermione's eye, who mimicked the maneouver.
"Oh, well that's good," said James then he eyed the red head next to him warily. "What are you going to do?"
Lily just smiled and James received a face full of her pillow, within moments all five were up swinging pillows around, feathers flying.
Hermione was standing on one of the beds when she lost her balance, she cried out and fell into Sirius and both tumbled to the floor laughing with Hermione on top. Her laughter however was caught in her throat as she met Sirius eyes. She was so close to his face she could feel his breath on her skin. Sirius had stopped laughing also and was staring intently into the hazel orbs of the girl on top of him.
Their eye contact was broken however by the appearance of the smallest Marauder at the door, a look of shock on his face at the sight of feathers all over the room.
Hermione blushed and stood quickly offering Sirius a hand to help him up.
"What happened in here?" asked Peter
In response he received five pillows to the face.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
New years had passed quickly and Hermione found herself wandering down the corridors alone, heading towards the library where she was meeting Remus and Peter. She listened to the sounds of her footsteps as her thoughts wandered to a certain black haired teen. She had been thinking a lot about Sirius lately, thoughts one did not usually associate with their Transfiguration professor 'he's not though, not yet' part of her thought, the logical Hermione responded quickly 'I'm not going to be here forever though, I cant hurt him, or myself' she reasoned, but a nagging thought kept plaguing her, she was falling for Sirius, she knew this, maybe it was time to follow her heart for a change rather than her head.
Suddenly she was pulled from her musings by an uncomfortable wave of dread. She pulled her wand out of her robes and held it steadily in front of her.
She heard a muttered voice from somewhere hidden and let out a cry of pain as her wand heated up and burnt her hand. She dropped her glowing wand, her only form of defense and looked up to meet steely pale blue eyes.
