Here With Me Chapter 1, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter One

There was an uncanny silence. Where had everyone gone? Moments before, this room had been filled with yelling and cursing and hexes flying left and right. Now, it was empty.

Sirius pressed a hand to his chest, grimacing slightly. Where had his cousin learned that curse? He thought that only Snivelly and the Marauders had known it. Perhaps Snivelly taught it to her in one of their old Death Eater meetings, Sirius thought acidly. Wherever she had learned it, it smarted like hell.

Suddenly, Sirius's heart twisted in his chest, almost constricting his air supply. Harry. He had to find Harry, to make sure none of the Death Eaters had gotten to him.

He took off running, but made it a grand total of three steps before tripping over something remarkably solid. His face crunched unpleasantly against the floor, and the wind was knocked out of him completely. It took him several moments and several deep, deep breaths before he was able to turn around and see what his legs were tangled up over.

It was a girl.

Sirius quickly untangled his legs and crawled over to her curiously to investigate her. She was an awful mess, covered in sweat and frizzy hair, and, from a long cut from wrist to inner elbow, blood. He made a quick decision to help the girl before searching for his godson… she might know where Harry had gone, anyway.

Sirius looked around frantically for his wand, and instead found what must have been the girl's, dropped a mere foot or so away from her. He waved it at the cut, which immediately stopped bleeding, but did not sew together as neatly as he would have liked, an unfortunate side effect of using a wand not his own. She would have a scar.

He allowed it to cross his mind what she could have been doing there, in the middle of the battle. He had certainly overlooked her, although there was something about her young-yet-aged face, a hidden quality, perhaps, that was uncannily familiar to him.

Sirius pointed her wand at her, and muttered, "Ennervate."

She stirred slightly, but only to lick her lips and turn her head the other way. He rolled his eyes and got to his feet. He would have to find Harry his own way.

He slowly morphed into a large, grizzly black dog, and, nose in the air for any possible scent, rushed off in search of his godson, or anyone who might be able to find him.

Hermione's head hurt like she had been hit with the Cruciatus Curse. She groaned and rolled onto her stomach, which gave an angry grumble in reply.

Was she hung over? She had heard stories about being hung over, and it was supposed to feel a lot like this. Impossible, I didn't drink, some logical part inside of her protested.

It took her all of thirty seconds to realize she was not at her home, and five seconds more for everything to come rushing back to her, from the reason behind the pain in her forearm to why she found herself unconscious at her work instead of nicely tucked in bed at her flat.

She sat up when realization hit her, with all the ferocity of a speeding train. She felt nausea build up inside her, and a dry retch coming along. She did nothing to stop it, and coughed on air for a few long moments.

But, if she had really done the spell…?

She forced the question to the back of her mind momentarily, mentally stepping back to view the scene.

Hermione was sure she looked like an awful mess. There was blood all over her left arm and in her hair from when she had collapsed all over her bleeding self. Her heart skipped a beat in fear when she realized the wound she had made herself was now completely healed, if messily so. Had someone been through here?

Head spinning like a top, Hermione clambered her way to her feet. She painstakingly bent to pick up her wand. It alone was on the floor. Apparently, the spell had torn up the dagger, as well as the protective markings on the floor.

Hermione felt beaten in every way, almost as if a tornado had taken her and tossed her against a solid wall time and time again. She was frazzled, covered in blood and sweat, and every muscle in her body screamed at her movement, every bone threatening to break into fine powder and blow away with the wind. She staggered drunkenly a few steps one direction, then another, falling one by one down the steps off the dais. She could almost hear the voices from beyond the veil laughing silently at her, but she did not care. She numbly staggered over to the staircase that would lead her out of the awful room, where the color had drunk her blood like a barfly drank his spirits, demanding more… she only had so much, she thought incoherently.

The world was fading fast from her vision once again, and she was afraid she would be unable to make it safely home. She knew for a fact she was in no condition to Apparate, and she would need to make it all the way to the Atrium to Floo. It was a lost cause. By the fifth step up, she was crawling, desperately grasping at the sixth and seventh step.

She heard a swift padding at the top of the stairs, a short pause, and then a clomping, like human feet making their way to her. She was too fatigued to lift her head or even her gaze.

Two strong hands lifted her by the shoulders, and her head blindly flopped onto the shoulder of the man who had picked her up. A not unkind yet stridently desperate voice that rang a sweet bell of Hermione's familiarity said urgently, "Harry… Harry Potter. Do you know him?"

Hermione was drifting away into a pleasant and silent abyss, and wondered disjointedly if she was actually expected to answer.

The man repeated the question, urgency multiplying tenfold.

"Er… yes."

She did nothing past that to stop the black from enveloping her once again, and slumped, inert, against the man's shoulder, arms draped around his neck.

Sirius was staggeringly tired from his multi-hour search of the entirety of the Department of Mysteries. He had checked every aisle of the Hall of Prophecy. He had sniffed in vain along every corridor. No scent of Harry, any of his friends he had taken with him, any of the Order, or even any Death Eaters could be detected. There was only a slight trail here and there, of strawberries and ink and parchment, that struck some far-distant chord of Padfoot's memory, but, Sirius realized with a silent disappointment, if belonged to this girl he now found listless in his arms.

He scooped her up, carrying her almost like a baby and taking her wand from her limp hand seconds before it clattered to the ground. He pocketed it, not sure when something like it would be necessary.

"Where to now?" Sirius asked aloud. For some reason, his voice caught with disuse at his throat. Something was very wrong here, and he wanted to know what it was.

The safest bet to find out everything that had happened in reasonable time was to go to Grimmauld Place, Sirius thought with a sigh, although he really was loathe to return after such a long imprisonment there, and with an unidentified witch in tow. He sighed, however, knowing that was the place he needed to be, and realizing suddenly that, in his tired condition, and with such a helpless passenger, even Side-Along Apparition was out of the question. He would have to be careful, but take them up and out the visitor's entrance, and then through the Muggle transport system back to his place.

It took Sirius six tries to find the door out of the Department of Mysteries, and his feet dragged tiredly as he made his way to the lift. There, he set the girl down and wiped beading sweat from his brow as the woman's tireless voice called out what floor they were at.

He bent once more to lift the girl at the Atrium, and trudged to the phone booth-like thing, which he jammed himself and the girl, now holding her vertically against him, into.

Sirius slid the glass door shut.

"Goodbye, and thank you for visiting the Ministry of Magic." The woman's voice said. "We hope you have enjoyed your stay."

Sirius mumbled something slightly incoherent as the ground began to rise.

Soon, he was facing the pitch black and rainy streets of London.

"Oh great, there had to be rain." He muttered.

It felt great to be outside again, despite how awful the rain felt running along his sweaty body. He shivered, and, hunched slightly over the girl protectively, walked to the nearest bus stop bench.

Something occurred to him, so simply genius he had to give himself a pat on the back. After checking for Muggles and seeing none around, he did a quick charm on the girl that kept the rain from her eyes, and then stepped out brazenly onto the street, sticking out his right hand.

Five minutes later, Sirius still stood there looking like a fool, desperately stepping off the curb again and again, wand hand stretched out. He stopped this idiotic display, finally coming to the silent internal agreement that the Knight Bus was, for some inexplicable reason, not doing its rounds that night.

With a sigh and a twist of his back that gave an ominous crack, Sirius picked the girl up once again. Her weight was almost familiar to him now, making it easier to lift her each time.

He walked along the road until he reached a part of the town that was not asleep; lights were on and music poured out into the streets from many bars. Sirius was drenched already, and just looking for a bus stop, when a car suddenly pulled over next to him, the driver leaning slightly out the window.

"Hey, you stranded?" The woman asked kindly.

Sirius almost laughed out loud. "You could say that. I think this girl needs help."

The woman's face flashed with panic. "Do you think she needs to go to a hospital?"

He shook his head, wet hair sticking uncomfortable to his face. "No, she just needs some decent rest."

"Want a lift?"

Sirius nodded with a sigh, and the lady got out of the car, holding an umbrella, to get the door for him. He slid the girl in, head against the far window, and then pushed her legs off the seat closest to him, taking it for himself. As the driver folded her umbrella and sat in the driver's side, Sirius switched the girl around, so that her head was on his warm shoulder instead of the cold, hard windowpane. He wrapped a protective arm around her, and he almost heard her murmur something as she laced her arms around his arm.

"What road?"

"Er… Grimmauld, do you know it?"

"Oddly enough, yes. My ex lives at number eleven."

Sirius gave an odd laugh, but was too busy rubbing his free hand over the girl's clammy ones to warm them slightly.

"Where on the road to you live?"

"Oh, here is fine." Sirius said suddenly. He said a hasty thank-you and goodbye to the woman, while unceremoniously tugging the girl out the backseat and into his arms once more. He waved as she drove off, leaving him with a final neighborly, "You really should get her in to see a doctor, you know".

It was a block's walk to his house, and he staggered all the way. Pulling the key achingly from his pocket, he finally fell through the doorway, and closed the portal behind him.

He sniffed the air. Something had changed.

The mustiness was there, the creepiness was there… even the heads of the House Elves were there (removing those had been next on the list, he seemed to remember deep in his conscious), he could barely make them out in the dark.

But Grimmauld Place had silence; unlike a hushed silence, as though not to wake anything up, but a deserted silence.

"They must all be at Hogwarts or something." Sirius muttered under his breath. He clambered through the dark up the stairs to his own room, lying the girl down in his bed and covering her with numerous covers, checking her forehead. She most definitely had a fever, and, from her nearly undetectable mutters and tosses, was slightly delirious. The matter directly at hand, however, was for Sirius to wait up for Dumbledore and the rest of the Order to get back, so they could tell him how everything had gone, where Harry was and what had happened to him, and where his bothersome cousin had gotten to….

Sirius flopped down on a couch in the main living room, where he could easily hear the entrance door open and shut, but something about the pattern and sound of the rain striking the house around him lulled him to sleep, and he slipped away into dream land, not even going with an ounce of fight in him.

Hermione tossed and turned violently in Sirius's bed, dreaming vividly of the day she had lived so many years ago, that she had worked so long to make it not so necessary to forget.

Stolen away in her sleep, from the Burrow at Christmas. A hand over her mouth, and a Silencing Charm to be sure, as well as a full-body bind, for she was not going without a fight. Watching Ginny pulled along, bound as she was, still struggling futilely. Joined by others in the den, where they also had Ron. One Death Eater asking another if they needed to get Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. The Death Eater saying no, the three were enough.

Being carried violently outside, and the Death Eaters Apparating with them to the Ministry of Magic, cold and deserted. Being dragged along, all the while knowing exactly where they were going. Feeling herself brush up against Ron in the lift. Unable to reach her own wand, so falling slightly in order to work Ron's into her clenched fist. Pulling it from his pocket. Their shoulders pressed together, keeping each other standing, and Ron barely able to breathe out from his clenched jaw, "Unfreeze yourself, then Ginny, but only once they get us wherever we're going." Hermione, barely being able to whisper back her agreement.

Being dragged through the Department of Mysteries, a long and winding way to the amphitheater with the arch. Now, it whispered to her as it had not the time before. She wondered offhandedly what it was saying.

Held in the room for hours of silence, all the while Hermione trying to get Ginny the message of what she was going to do.

Bellatrix arriving just after Hermione had unfrozen herself and Ginny. Pretending to still be frozen. Bellatrix unfreezing Ron, wrenching him to his feet, shooting ropes at him from her wand to tie his hands behind his back. The determination in Ron's eyes as he shook her off momentarily and bent down to kiss Hermione, tears streaming down her face. The kiss deepening, but Ron being wrenched away to the jeers of the Death Eaters. Silent tears streaming down Ginny's face, and Hermione wondering why they made her cheeks wet, too.

Bellatrix explaining the plan to them. Kill the one, to spark Potter into action, and let him come to reclaim the others. Ron fighting against being pushed through the arch. The Cruciatus Curse, tearing Hermione apart from the inside as she bit back screams that bled through, anyway. Having the spell lifted only to see it put on again. Ron finally falling to his knees, in tears, yelling that he would do it if they did not torture Ginny or Hermione. Getting shakily to his feet, and, despite Ginny's and Hermione's screams of protest, walking through the veil… and disappearing.

Not able to feel anything after that. Screaming throughout everything that happened, leaping to her feet, both she and Ginny clutching their wands and firing curses everywhere. When all Death Eaters were Stupefied or otherwise incapacitated except for two, Hermione facing Bellatrix down. Pointing the wand at her and muttering the two words that killed the woman, a look of fright permanently etched onto her face. Collapsing just in time to hear the Order, with Harry along, appear, and Harry rushing to Ginny instead of to her. She felt… nothing. Emptiness.

She felt that same emptiness for five long years, working to get Ron to walk back through that archway.

Sirius moaned and rolled to his other side, eyes fluttering as he glanced at his watch.

It was noon already, and he was starving. He wondered for a second if Molly would cook him breakfast, before remembering that he had not heard any of the Order come back the night before.

Sirius staggered to his feet, moaning slightly and trying to remember what had happened the night before, why his feet hurt so terribly. He remembered running through the Department of Mysteries, looking for Harry, howling and tearing things apart.

He rubbed his head thoroughly, before it hit him.

The girl.

He ran up the stairs and into his own room.

The girl was still asleep on his bed, although it looked like a restless sleep. She moaned and shook her head, cried and tore at the blankets. For the good of his upholstery, he pulled her wand out of his pocket and sent a small jet of water into her face.

She sat up like she had been slapped awake, breathing heavily. Her brown eyes were wide, unfocused, and her hair more frazzled from the torments of sleep than it had been even the night before. Sirius watched as her eyes trailed down the bed, up the bed post, to the canopy above the bed, and then slowly around the room, finally resting on Sirius. She was still breathing as if she had run miles.

"It's impossible." She whispered, voice gravelly, almost as if something had scratched all the way down her throat.

"You," Sirius said, "have got some explaining to do, girl, as well as quite a fever." He moved over and felt her forehead with the back of his hand.

She flapped her hand at him impatiently and pulled away from his close scrutiny. There really was something about that bossy air that he recognized completely.

She was muttering now, and all he could make out was the odd word, "Why… wrong person… meant… prepared… Ron?"

"Ron?" Sirius asked, and the girl looked up sharply. Sirius's interest was piqued. "You mean… Ron Weasley?"

Her eyes were wide, and she nodded.

"Where… where is he?"

The girl let her head fall into her hands and shook with sobs. Sirius hesitantly patted her on the shoulder in comfort, but really just wanted to know where Ron had gone. He was shocked into stillness as he heard her next whispered word.

"Dead."

Dead.

"Did…" Sirius asked after several silent seconds, "the Death Eaters kill him?"

A nod.

"Was it Bellatrix?"

Another nod.

"What for?"

She was so quiet he had to lean in to hear. "To get Harry to come."

"But… wasn't Harry already there?"

She shook her head.

Sirius was very confused. "I thought… hadn't they said they were torturing me to get Harry to come?"

The girl was silent, and looked up, peering at him through hair and fingers. She looked absolutely horrified. "You mean…" she said, "you don't… know?"

Sirius rolled his eyes, huffing impatiently. "Listen, girl, I don't know who you think you are, but I am the convict Sirius Black, I saved your life, and I will take it if you don't tell me where Harry Potter is right now!"

My first not completely R/Hr fic. I'm proud of myself for breaking away so much.