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Chapter 33

We didn't expect to find the horcrux, and as we expected our search of the castle that weekend came up with nothing. The lack of results made Sirius rather a surly person to be around. After all it meant that he wasn't even going to be the one to find the horcrux. Not to mention that it rested on Severus's shoulders... a place Sirius never wanted to rest anything.

I was optimistic about our chances of finding the horcrux now that we had Severus helping as well. Not surprising though, Sirius was not as optimistic about our chances. In fact he thought adding Severus's help was going to worsen our likelihood of finding the dark lord's life line. It was rather amusing though that he thought this now since it actually had been his idea to get the Potions master involved. His mind had been changed though likely from my enthusiasm for Severus helping us out. The man was positively green with jealousy sometimes.

Severus's help was something, that I atleast, wanted but it worried me occasionally that I was putting too much on his shoulders. He was helping me find a way to break my connection, he was keeping an eye on Cain, and now he was searching the Slytherin area for the horcrux. So I was determined to deal with the first issue as much as possible.

Which meant vast amounts of time spent in the library while not in class.

A sudden visit though interrupted that vast amount of time.

"Hermione?"

I had opened the door to my rooms when a knock broke my attention away from the book I had been perusing. It wasn't like I was missing much though, the book was pretty much a dead end street. Though I now knew particularly well how to charm a tree into changing colours. Well if I knew how to do magic, then I would be sure to make a purple tree.

"I'm not disturbing you am I?" Hermione asked the question sincerely, waiting to be invited in. It made a rather nice change to have someone actually wait for me to let them in, instead of sweeping in like Draco and Severus.

"No no. I was just doing a little reading..." I paused, recalling that I wasn't supposed to let Hermione know too much about what was going on. Harry was very protective of his friends, especially Hermione and Ron after they had just had their second child. In fact he might not even like that she had even come to visit me. Perhaps I should have changed my story, said that she was disturbing me but it was nice to have someone visit me.

The young woman entered my room when I stood back from the door, offering her a place to sit on the couch. While she got comfortable I started to rack my brain to figure out what possible reason she could have to visit me. To visit Sirius would be expected, but she had only met me once. Perhaps I was starting to become suspicious and paranoid around here, but I couldn't help but think that Hermione Granger was here for a reason that was likely not to do with how my classes were going.

"So how are your classes going?"

Okay, so maybe I was paranoid...

"Rather well actually. Despite everyone's worries so far no student has turned me into a chicken."

My offer of tea was turned down by my impromptu visitor so I settled in on the armchair by the fire, waiting for her to let me know what was going on.

"Well that's good. Being turned into a chicken is never a pleasant feeling."

"I somehow find it hard to believe that you would have ever allowed anyone to do that to you."

A soft laugh came from the young woman.

"Of course not. Ron was the one who got turned into a chicken. His brother Fred decided that his squawking was better suited to a bird then a human. I have to say though he did make a rather adorable red feathered chicken."

The image that entered my mind made me laugh along with her. After all picturing a large red squawking bird running around like it had just it's proverbial head cut off was rather amusing. I doubted that it was actually a human sized bird, but that just made it more amusing in my head.

"Thankfully I haven't had that pleasure yet. Poor Ron though... You of course transformed him back immediately didn't you?"

"Of course..." She paused, looking innocent. "Pretty much."

"Of course." I smirked slightly.

"So how are you and Sirius getting along?"

That was a loaded question if ever I heard one. I regarded the brown haired girl sitting so innocently across from me. There was a tilt to her lips, an amused look in her eyes, so it was likely that she was at least partially aware of certain things between Sirius and me.

If this was the reason she was visiting me, then I have to say that I was relieved. My romantic entanglements, or lack thereof, were certainly easier to deal with the deflecting questions about Sirius's miraculous recovery, Voldemort's return, or any muggle deaths.

Not that I wanted to talk about my personal life either...

"We get along fine..." My eyes were narrowed at the woman, showing my displeasure at having her get involved with my business.

"I've been staying in contact with Sirius." Apparently she ignored my discomfort with this line of questioning. She brought her head up, looking me directly in the eyes, her own gaze clear and direct.

"That's good. I'm sure he says we're getting along fine as well." I said it with forced assurance.

Actually there was a possibility he said other things entirely. Things including his possible feelings for me, and mine for him. They might not have all been kind either. He had accused me in the past of playing with him, perhaps he had told Hermione this. Perhaps this was why the young woman was visiting me now.

"He's wounded you know." It was a sudden comment, strange and it caused me to dig my nails into the wood of the chair hard. She didn't mean physically..

Of course I knew that he was wounded, that he was a broken man on the inside. He did well to hide it around people. If you didn't know better you would think him a simple playboy, the only ideas in his head how to get into trouble and not get caught doing it. And to be sure those were parts of his personality, but the thing outweighing everything else was the complete and utter despair that hung over him. Sure he smiled, flirted, laughed, and it covered it all up, but anyone who knew him even me, in the short time I had known him could tell. His time in Azkaban, the deaths of all those closest to him, and his own trip beyond the veil had shattered him inside. It was going to be a task for those that cared about him to put the pieces together again.

The look I was getting from Hermione, the question in her eyes, indicated that she thought me up to the task. As far as I thought though, I lacked the moral fibre to really accomplish it. When I looked away from her, unsure of the answer to her silent question she sighed softly.

"Ever since I met him, he was like a wounded dog. Sure he kept barking, and putting up a fight, but it was all just quickening his death. He was Harry's godfather, so he was important to him and through that he was important to me. But aside from that he was a good man, a proud and brave person who I grew to know the summer before my fifth year. And then he died... and we all mourned. But he's alive again, given a second chance... by you."

My eyes snapped back to her face immediately, looking to see what she meant by that. There was no doubt that she knew the truth, but she ignored my surprised expression, going on.

"He cares about you, and when I saw him with you it was probably the closest I saw to the wound healing. I'm not asking for anything, just don't reopen the wound. Please."

"I like Sirius. But I am not going to get into a relationship with him, not because you want me to be his therapist and piece him back together again. And anyway I have rather a few problems when it comes to love..."

A brown eyebrow rose in question at me.

"Well, Sirius isn't the only person I've grown... close to here at Hogwarts." I didn't know why, but I felt a pale blush across my cheeks.

"Professor Snape right?" Hermione shook her head, a confused look on her face.

"Don't you start too. He's not that bad of a person. I get enough of the 'he's evil' talk from Sirius."

"No, no. I won't say that. I know that Professor Snape is really a good person, just really deep down. Really deep..." She shrugged slightly. "It's just a bit hard for me since he did make my school years rather... hard. It's difficult to see him as a man."

"Can't say I ever had that problem."

This little comment caused Hermione to gag across from me, a shudder going through her. It was fairly obvious whose side she was on.

"Well I didn't come here to tell you who you should..."

"Have sex with?" I grinned, filling in the blank.

"I was going to say date." She was now blushing brightly.

"Well I am 29 years old, at my age it tends to be more of a question of sex then going steady." I had pity upon her and changed the subject. "So why did you visit me, if it wasn't about my sexual habits with Sirius and Severus?" I had pity, but I still liked to tease people.

"It's about that break in to NYU." Immediately her manner was efficient and businesslike. My own changed to match her, the teacher sliding into place, listening. "I work in the Muggle Affairs department. I keep an eye on situations, make sure wizards aren't doing anything to the muggles. So I have of course been keeping a firm eye on odd things, and that break in counted. Now the ministry does admit that it was wizards who did it..."

A heavy weight lifted off my heart, glad to see a spark of responsibility being shown at the ministry. Their disregard for it earlier had caused me plenty of sleepless nights, wondering about what had happened, who of my own colleagues had suffered at the hands of a dark wizard.

"But they refuse to see something vital. That the attack had the stamp of Voldemort all over it." Hermione took my sharp intake of breath to mean my own surprise at hearing the Dark Lord's name. "Not to worry, of course he's gone. Harry dealt with him as I'm sure you know from those horrid books. But I'm concerned that someone else might be trying to do what he had done."

So certain secrets were safe still. For a moment I considered telling her that the truth was that he was alive, that the deals didn't have the stamp of Voldemort on them because of a copy cat, but the real deal. My choice was made though by the fact that telling Severus had gotten be in a bit of trouble, but telling Hermione would have likely gotten me killed my Harry, or as good as.

"Do you know who died?" I took this chance to find out exactly who had died at my school.

"I would have thought someone would have told you." She looked puzzled.

"Well, Sirius didn't know and as for Severus and Draco... well they weren't overly concerned with the names of dead muggles." I muttered softly, shaking my head at the habit of most Slytherins to disregard muggles.

"There were three killed. A Simon Lucas, Matthew Caulder and a Tricia Lindwold." She listed off the names with great concern, watching me carefully to see my reaction. "There wasn't much to distinguish who was who apparently..."

I knew that well enough. Images of Cairn, or what was left of him, flashed in front of my mind's eye. Torn flesh, blood every where. Just the memory caused bile to rise in my throat. The look of nausea on my face gave Hermione the wrong impression. She took my discomfort, the pain on my face to indicate that I had known or cared for the names she had listed.

She was right though, I knew them all. Simon Lucas had been campus security, and Tricia Lindwold was a fellow history professor. Then there was Matt Caulder... I should have felt something from his death. He had been my boss... but he had also been a thorn in my side. It was always sad when someone you know dies, but when people pretend to care... Well, I hated when people lied to themselves and others when people they didn't like died. I of course didn't want the man dead, but I wasn't going to cry 'Why?' to the world.

But my distress over memories of Cairn gave a good enough impression of depression over the deaths at NYU.

"I'm sorry..." Hermione reached out a hand to place warmly over my own, comforting.

"Thank you." I slid my hand out from beneath hers, giving a small smile. She knew nothing of how Cairn had died, I wasn't sure even if she had known him at all so there was no way I could explain why I had looked pained, why I had been sad.

"I have to say I find it a little odd that you come into the Wizarding world as a teacher here, and then your old school gets broken into and people killed by dark wizards." The comforting girl was gone, and in her stead was the smart, perceptive young woman. This woman knew well enough that coincidences were not likely to be the answer here. This was one of the smartest witches of her age, or any age.

I took a deep breath, preparing my story, figuring out the looks to give.

"Do you... Do you think that it's my fault that they died? It was the university I worked at after all..." My hand came up to my mouth in horror. "Were they looking for me and killed them because they were angry that they couldn't find me? Were all their deaths because of me?"

So maybe I was laying it on a bit thick with the surprise and dismay. But it was believable, because there was truth in it. I did think it was my fault that those three people had been killed. There was no way that it was a coincidence that Voldemort had broken into NYU, it had been to do with me... So the horror was true and real.

"Of course it wasn't your fault!" Hermione said, her voice suddenly loud. "It's possible though that you might be connected..."

"I don't see why." I shook my head, trying very hard to look the innocent.

"How did you bring Sirius back to life?"

The question was expected but still sudden with the asking.

"Hermione... You should know there are always reasons that secrets are kept."

I didn't want to lie to her, try and blind side her with confusing arguments or reasoning. On the other hand I could not tell her the truth. As far as I was concerned she was already walking a dangerous line, getting to close to what was going on. And Harry wanted to keep her safe, for the sake of her children.

She didn't seem too pleased with my silence on the matter.

"So Hermione, Harry told me you have two children. What are their names?" A change of subject might clear the air, and in my own experience asking mothers about their children always helped matters, especially when they were rather new parents.

"Faith and Remus." Hermione smiled fondly, thinking of her own children.

"Remus?" I blinked, a slow smile appearing on my face. "Sirius must have been thrilled to hear that."

She nodded.

"He was a great teacher, and he became our friend." Hermione sighed, a sad smile now on her face. "But yes, Sirius was rather... taken aback when he heard we had named our boy Remus..."

He would deny it, but there had likely been tears in his eyes. Remus Lupin had been his last link to his happy school days. Peter had betrayed him, Lily and James had been killed, all he had left was Remus. When he had died it had been knowing that at least Remus was alive, so to be brought back and find that his last friend was gone now... it had destroyed Sirius, opened that wound wider.

"It was probably a good thing I didn't tell him little Remy's middle name..." Hermione chuckled softly.

"You gave him Sirius's name as well didn't you?" I smiled fondly at the woman.

She smiled brightly, nodding at my question. "My little boy's full name is Remus Sirius Weasley."

It was an interesting name, sounded a bit odd really, but it was such a beautiful thought. Really it was the greatest honour to give those two people.

"He would have had a fit." I laughed, imagining what Sirius would have done. Likely he would have blushed, then joked it off, and probably been holding back the urge to cry, in the end he probably would have crushed Hermione to him with a large hug.

"Close enough to one. Thought I might have to resuscitate him. Not sure Ron would have appreciated that." There was a small smirk on her lips.

Not sure I would have appreciated that either.

"You're not going to tell me how you did it are you?" She was all seriousness once more.

"No."

Too much was at risk for her, and hearing about her two children made me more adamant about following Harry's wishes.

"Well it's my job to keep an eye on things, so I won't give up about this." She narrowed her eyes at me, and I knew quite well that she wasn't exaggerating anything. "I'll let you know if anything else comes up about the break in."

She stood up to take her leave.

"Was anything stolen?"

She paused at the doorway, turning to look at me carefully.

"One office looked like it had been turned upside down."

There was no need to ask whose office had been searched, stolen from. I racked my brain to try and remember if there had been anything in my office to warrant a search, anything I would be worried about being found. Nothing came to mind.

"Be careful Hermione. You need to take care of your kids, don't dig too deep in any of this. Copy cats can still be as dangerous as the original."

The smile she gave me was rather fond, making me relieved that she wasn't holding a grudge against me for not telling her everything.

She left then and I sat back down, thinking hard.

Was there really any reason for Voldemort and his followers to break into NYU? To kill people, or search my office? Sure I had brought Sirius back to life but what could that matter to powerful wizards? I could see them trying to kill Sirius, but the person who brought him back to life? There was no reasoning there.

And searching my office? I had nothing important there, merely some papers, old artifacts and my awards from the boys stating me as the sexiest teacher. Maybe Voldemort wanted to feel sexy and stole those...

"Irma? I know I've pretty much gone through all the books in here... but do you have any idea what else might work?"

A week after Hermione's visit and I was trying desperately to break my connection to Sirius. His job was to find the horcrux, and I had even managed to get him Severus's help as well. My job though was to solve this problem. After the visit from Hermione, I wanted to get out of here.

The break in had been deliberate, and I was involved. As little as I may have known the people who had died, it had been my fault their families were now grieving. Despite Matt's shortcomings he must have parents somewhere crying over their loss.

So now I wanted to get out of this situation. Perhaps it was dangerous of me to want to go back home, but I doubted that I would be involved once I was out of this place. It was selfish enough, but as far as I figured I had helped out enough. I had brought Sirius back to life.

The question I asked Madam Pince was almost a desperate one, and the look the old librarian gave me suggested that she recognized it as such. Now while I had been looking to Madam Pince to help me, I hadn't actually told her why I needed books on these subjects.

Even though most of the students thought she was just a crazy old bat who hated them (which was actually really rather spot on...), she wasn't stupid at all.

"Aine, I don't think the library has any books that will give you the solution to yours and Mr. Black's problem."

I stared at the woman for a few moments before giving a heavy sigh.

"Am I that obvious? Does everyone in this school know now? I told Severus and the Headmistress... but everyone else was supposed to not know." I shook my head, looking earnestly at the woman. "Don't tell Sirius please. He's already annoyed with me for giving out secrets too much." That was certainly true, every once in a while he would bring up me telling Severus all the secrets. I didn't need him getting on my case for letting Madam Pince know.

She didn't answer, just waved a hand at me , giving a soft huff of annoyance. I shouldn't have worried about her, she wasn't the type to go telling people all her secrets, she was far too private for any of that.

After a sigh of relief, she waved me over to her desk and handed me a large brown leather book.

"I thought you said you had no books that could help?"

"The library doesn't." She huffed angrily. "I've been trying to get McGonagall to improve the library for years." She patted the book in my hands, a loving gesture. "This one is from my own personal library. It's the closest thing to a solution I think you shall find in any books that I know about. Good luck."

I eyed the library which was actually rather full of students studying and doing papers for their classes, some of which I didn't doubt were doing papers for my own. One fourth year boy gave me a particularly displeased look over the top of his dictionary. I don't know why though, I had only given his class an essay on pencils and pens and the differences between those and quills, wanting detailed descriptions, usages and kinds.

Due to the rather sensitive research I was doing, and not in small part because of the angry looks I was getting, I chose to take the book that Irma so thoughtfully had let me borrow back to my own room to look over.

"Professor!"

My retreat to my room was halted by the sudden appearance of Miss Cooper running toward me down the hall. Her brow was covered in sweat indicating that she had been running for quite a bit, apparently to catch up to me. She looked almost excited.

"Miss Cooper, is everything all right?"

She stopped in front of me, taking a few minutes to breathe in deeply. After a few deep breaths she stood up.

"Professor, you wanted me to tell you if anything interesting happened." She held out a paper to me which I took in my hand and unfolded it. It was just a normal muggle paper, the Daily Mirror, and on the cover was an article on a break in at the British Museum in London. I looked up from perusing the article to raise an eyebrow at the red headed girl in front of me.

"There are plenty of thieves in the world Miss Cooper. I hate to say it about my kind, but we muggles seem to like to steal."

"Well you wanted me to tell you anything odd. I thought a theft like this would count as odd." She blinked, looking a little crestfallen at apparently jumping the gun.

I frowned slightly and looked down at the article again, and my suspicious nature reared it's ugly head. She was right, a break in at the British Museum was something that was rather odd, especially in conjunction with the break in at NYU.

Rather shamefully I was actually hoping this break in was connected to Voldemort. It was with selfish reasons as well. I had no connections to the museum, so this had nothing to do with me. Which would indicate that the NYU break in was a coincidence.

"Thank you Miss Cooper. Can I keep this paper?"

She nodded. There was no indication that she was going to leave, waiting for me to give her some praise for the good work.

"Miss Cooper, have you finished doing your Potions homework?" I smirked slightly at the twitch that appeared in her eye. I knew for a fact that Severus had just laid a heavy load on top of his fifth year students. What reason? Apparently one Ravenclaw student had suggested that Severus looked like an albino toad... When he had mentioned it to me, I had almost missed the punishment given over my own laughter.

Immediately Chauncey ran off down the hallway, and I turned and made my way back to my room, ready to try and figure out two problems. The pesky connection issue, and the possibility of serial break-ins committed by Death Eaters.