Disclaimer: I can only dream about owning any Harry Potter characters. J.K Rowling owns all of them…I swear she does! LOL!

Author's note: Well, here I am, up at four in the morning because I can't sleep and it seems I have had the inspiration to write. I'll try to finish the chapter today and post it soon. Just so you guys know, this chapter is written in both Hermione and Sirius's point of view. Most of the direct thoughts are in italics, but some of them aren't. I hope it doesn't get too confusing for you guys! Here it goes and I hope everyone enjoys:-)

CHOSEN

Chapter 4

New Watcher Extravaganza

To say that Hermione got any sleep that night would be an outright lie. For the first bit she just tossed and turned, rumpling her sheets just getting frustrated. At times like these, Hermione usually knew the answers and what was to happen, but to say she had a clue as to what was going on…she didn't.

Hermione sighed and got up. Flinging her sheets off her, she felt the cold air hit her legs, causing gooseflesh to appear. Getting changed into the mundane school uniform, she stepped into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

Filling the sink with ice-cold water, Hermione splashed some over her face. Teeth chattering, she buried into a towel, feeling slightly more awake then she had been a moment ago. She brushed her teeth, and then looked at her reflection in the mirror before deciding to pull her hair into a messy bun. Glancing at the overall effect, she decided it worked and made her way out of the dormitory and down into the common room.

It was early in the morning and the sun was just peeking over the horizon. Long shadows were cast about and the crackling fire in the grate made the common room looking quite welcoming. Hermione found it quite tempting to sit down in one of the big cushy armchairs and read, or maybe fall asleep. But she wanted to think and felt somewhat like just walking around.

So out the portrait hole she went.

The hallways were dark and screamed suspicion as Hermione walked timidly down the halls. She didn't want to be caught by a teacher, but even her silent tiptoe seemed hugely magnified to her sense of hearing.

After what seemed like a long time, she reached the astronomy tower and walked out onto the large balcony. Hermione walked over to the edge and leaned her head heavily on one arm. She hadn't realized how tired and trouble she was until now. It was almost too much for her to handle. How could all this happen at once?

First, being thrown back in time. That was a horrible sense of luck. And it was no better that I've been thrown into a time where Harry's parents and godfather, and our professor are. I could screw up the course of events up really bad here. And it's hard to see the people I loved that were dead, now alive and well. I feel horrible for keeping everything from these wonderful people. I could do so much to change everyone's lives, but I'm too scared to say anything. I could most likely save James, Lily, and Sirius. But if I said something, the results could be disastrous. I don't know what to do!

The next thing that happens when I arrive in this alien place is that I'm told I'm the slayer. Just how am I supposed to take something like that? I'm told that I'm destined to fight vampires and demons and monsters and I'm supposed to be okay with that? I knew my dreams were weird and all, but I never thought they would lead to something like this.

Hermione ran her hands through her hair. She was so frustrated. It seemed like she had no control over what was happening. Hermione wished that Harry and Ron were here. They would find some way to make her feel better. Hermione shut her eyes and tried hard to imagine what they would do if they were here. Harry would probably comfort her with one of those amazing hugs he gave and Ron would most likely think of something so utterly stupid to say that would make her laugh.

Hermione smiled faintly before dissolving into tears. What a mess she had gotten herself into! "I don't belong here," she whispered softly to herself.

"Yes you do," came the unexpected reply.

Hermione whirled around to see who it was.

Sirius…

Sirius could never sleep these days. There seemed to be something happening. He could sense the evil forces rallying together in the dark. They seemed to screech at him, taunting, and he didn't know what way they would strike from first so he was stuck thrashing around blindly in the dark.

Sirius wished he could fight. He wished there was something he could fight. He knew there was a war coming and there was no escaping it, he just wished that he knew what was coming so he could prepare for it.

Dumbledore also seemed troubled. That was another thing that was bothering him. He had noticed that Dumbledore didn't seem his lively self, something was different, something was wrong. Sirius could sense that something had happened and he wanted to know what had. Something big was brewing, and he knew Albus Dumbledore was in on it, and he wanted to be too.

The last thing that was bothering him was May. She seemed so troubled. Ever since he had first set his eyes upon her he knew there was something special about her. Something he liked. He wanted to get close to her. To know her on a more personal level and help her sort out her problems. He wanted to make her laugh and feel better. Sirius didn't know why, but he seemed drawn to her.

Snapping out of his reverie, Sirius headed out of the boys dorm and down into the common room. Pacing around down there for a while, he finally decided to take a walk down to the astronomy tower. It was about sunrise and Sirius thought the perhaps he would like to watch.

The hallways seemed cramped to him and he wished to push at the walls and yell to stop closing in on him. He decided against using a light, incase a professor decided to walk over. The portraits on the wall made no complaint as he walked silently by and Sirius suspected that many of them were asleep.

The bluish-grey dawn was just started to spread when he reached the tower. He had taken his time walking here decided that coming would be worth it. The first birds had just started to sing and a light breeze accompanied the clear chirps and whistles, twisting their melody through the air in a sweet duet while time seemed to stand still. Sirius sat in a corner and shadows caressed him as he waited silently for the sun to rise.

Just as the sun started to peek over the horizon, a figure appeared in the doorway and walked over to the rail, leaning against it. After a while, Sirius realized that the figure was May, and she hadn't seen him. Sitting absolutely still, he listened as every now and then she sighed and after a while she broke down and cried.

This was almost unbearable for Sirius and he had a hard time keeping himself from rushing over and holding her in his arms, whispering that everything would be all right.

He heard her whisper into the air, "I don't belong here." And couldn't help himself from replying, "yes you do."

Realizing that he had just blown his cover, he stepped up and walked over to her. At first, she seemed upset, but then she calmed down a bit, cautiously wiping the tears form her eyes and asked lightly, "Couldn't sleep?"

Sirius laughed, "Not really." After an awkward silence he asked, "Are you alright?"

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like the fact that she had been caught crying. "Err, yea. I'm fine. Just tired."

Sirius moved closer so that he was partially out of the shadow but still half in. The position seemed to highlight his features and he looked so truly handsome. His eyes pierced at her worriedly and his head was tilted in a way that told he was curious. The whole picture seemed largely poetic and Hermione could see the worry etched into his face. She wanted to wipe it away for him but she knew hidden under that worry was darkness and trouble. Standing in front of her was a very troubled and very handsome man and she didn't know what to say to him.

Sirius knew that something was wrong but he didn't know how to get her to tell him.

Standing in the light of the newborn sun she looked amazingly beautiful. The light cast a golden look about her and a few wisps of her hair blew lightly in the wind. She seemed so fresh, so young, but somehow she also seemed wise beyond her years. He saw something flash through her eyes but in a moment it was gone.

Walking over to her, Sirius wrapped his arms around her. He felt her freeze for a moment the grip him tightly as though she would float away if she let go. Sirius felt her breathing harshly and knew that she was crying again. Rocking her back and forth, he whispered softly to her, "It's all right. Everything will be okay. I'm here for you if you ever need to talk. All you need to do is say when you want me and I'll be there, okay?"

Teary eyed, Hermione looked at him wondrously. How could he be so thoughtful? And how did he make her feel like this? She never wanted to let go of him. Nothing had ever felt so right as being in Sirius Black's arms.

Looking into his eyes, Hermione felt herself drawing forward, as if magnetized. Sirius was also leaning forward. Realizing that they were about to kiss, Hermione turned away. I can't do this! It's Harry godfather, he wouldn't like it. And he's twenty years older than me, it would be wrong.

Sirius sensed her unease and hugged her tightly. "It's alright." He comforted her, feeling slightly disappointed.

Hermione relaxed back into his arms and together they watched as the sun rose, smearing warm colors across the sky and welcoming the new day.

Outside Dumbledore's office…

Hermione was poised outside Dumbledore's office at exactly eight in the morning, the appointed time she was supposed to meet her watcher at. Just as she was about to knock, the door swung open and Albus Dumbledore whisked her down the hallway.

At Hermione's questionable gaze, the professor explained, "I have arranged to meet your watcher in his new classroom."

Hermione raised her delicate eyebrows; she didn't think her watcher would be someone she had already seen. "Classroom? My watcher's a professor?"

"He came early this morning," Dumbledore quipped in a crisp early-morning voice.

Hermione's eyebrows rose into her hair, "My watcher is a man?"

Dumbledore peered at Hermione through the corners of his eyes and a small quirk of a smile appeared to be tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Yes," he replied, "is that a problem?"

Hermione felt a blush begin to rise in her cheeks and chided with herself. "No, not at all. It just didn't sound like a very manly job."

Dumbledore steered her around a corner and chuckled lightly. "Watchers can be male or female, it just depends on who the council chooses."

"There's a council?" the confused teen asked.

"Yes, there is a whole group of trained watchers ready for when the next slayer is called. They all gather information about the creatures that you are to fight and keep it in secure places." Hermione opened her mouth to ask another question but Dumbledore cut her off with a swish of his hand. "How about you save any questions you may have for when we meet up with your watcher."

Hermione now glanced around to where her professor had been taking her and realized that she had no clue whatsoever to where she was. Taking it up with him she asked, "Where are we?"

"We are in the passage behind the hospital wing. There is a whole other part of the school here," Dumbledore answered.

Hermione furrowed her brow. "Why have I never been here before then?"

"This part of the school hasn't been used for years. It has always been here but when Salazar Slytherin left, it was forgotten," Dumbledore explained.

"And why was that? Why are you finally using it after all these years?"

Dumbledore could see why Hermione had been chosen as the slayer, she was so dedicated to seeking out the unexplained answers. "Well, this summer, the school board got together and decided to re-open it for the new subject that is now going to be taught at the school."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "New subject? What new subject?"

Dumbledore rubbed his temples and sighed, "the questions never end with you, do they?"

"No. What new subject?" Hermione repeated, pestering the poor old man.

"Well it's not really a new subject, more like an option."

"Okay, well, what does he do?"

Dumbledore cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing, "He's going to be sort of like a counselor for troubled students. He's going to be there for students who just need to talk. He won't give any tests or anything, he's just going to be there for when people need him."

Hermione nodded, understanding. "Except it will be a class as well?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said simply, not wanting to start up another round of debated speech.

Hermione just walked along next to Dumbledore, turning this new information all over in her mind, then and asked, "Well, who is my watcher? Do I know him?"

Just then a voice spoke up from ahead, "is this she Albus?"

Hermione looked up as Dumbledore answered, "Yes Charles, I've brought you the newest slayer." The man standing in front of them was of medium height. Looking quite dorky in his tweed jacket, Hermione thought to herself. His light brown hair was swept back in a sort of hopeless manor that made it look like he ran his fingers through it a lot. He was wearing a pair of rounded glasses and overall the whole effect made him look that much more professor-like.

Charles stepped over anxiously to shake his new slayers hand. "I am Charles Travers," he commented, sounding quite like a robot, "It's wonderful to finally meet you Miss Johnson."

Hermione smiled warmly, "it's nice to meet you to Mr. Travers, please call me May. I take it we're going to be working together so I'll be going first name basis only."

Charles grinned widely, revealing extremely white teeth, "Alright then, you may call me Charles," but then he stammered, "E-except for when I'm teaching."

"'Course," Hermione agreed.

Just then, Dumbledore stepped in. "Well, overall this has gone quite well. There's been no shouting or threatening. I take it to be a success." Both Hermione and Charles looked at Dumbledore bewildered and Dumbledore continued to speak, filling the now uncomfortable silence, "how about we step into your classroom Charles, and discuss what is about to happen." Charles nodded graciously and they all stepped through the doorway they had been standing in to enter the classroom.

It was a large classroom with a high ceiling and big windows covered one of the walls. The rest were lined with bookshelves filled to the brim. Glancing at some of the titles, Hermione couldn't wait to get her hands on some of them. There weren't any desks, but there were four large tables, each in one corner of the room.

There was a doorway at the front of the classroom that Hermione soon found out led to Charles office, in which, conveniently, the walls were also lined with books. There was an ancient tea set sitting on one side of the desk and the rest of it was covered in random papers covered in writing.

Charles left them waiting in his office and ran out to get two other chairs and when he came back in, he politely offered Hermione his comfortable desk chair.

"So anyways, down to business," Charles exclaimed cheerfully, "what is it we need to discuss?"

Dumbledore cleared his throat, "well, there's the matter of when Miss Johnson is supposed to see you."

"Ah yes," Charles paused to clean his glasses before continuing, "If thought it'd be best if you came to see me everyday the week, so we can train, say, an hour before classes start. That way, you won't miss anything and I won't interfere with your homework time."

Hermione rolled her eyes playfully, "Alright then, we can't start today though, cause classes start in a half an hour, but tomorrow would be good."

"Good," Charles stated and they both turned to look at the headmaster again.

"Just so you know," Dumbledore spoke directly to Charles, "she hasn't been trained yet. Nor slain any real vampires. As a matter of fact her experience with the whole lot is quite at zero."

"Hey!" Hermione exclaimed, a little angry, "I did have dreams about bits of it."

Charles held up both his hands to stop the fighting. "Okay," he compromised, "I was going to train her anyways, and May, you'll have to tell me all about the dreams that you have. And if there's anything else that happens I need to know about it. Has anything suspicious happened lately?"

Hermione felt a little uncomfortable about this for some reason and started into a long speech about the 'suspicious' happenings she had been through so far, "Well, I do have really weird dreams about killing vampires and Voldemort killing me and such. But when I was on the train, there were these weird demon dudes. Sort of like a skinny, tall Mr. Potato head."

Just then Charles interrupted, "Demon? Really? Could you describe them for me?"

"Well…" Hermione thought hard, trying to remember exactly what the demons looked like, "they had skin like an elephant, and it seemed waaaaay to large for them. Ummm…they were bald…oh and they had the evil red eyes, totally classic for a monster. And they had really long, sharp claws. I know because one of them scratched the heck out of my arms," At this point, Hermione pulled back her sleeves, planning to show them the cuts, but they were gone! "Hey! They were there yesterday!"

Charles smiled and explained; "slayers heal faster then other people." Hermione nodded understandingly and he asked, "Was there anything really distinguishing about these-err-demons?"

Hermione scratched her head thoughtfully before replying, "You know, they had no nose and mouth. Is that distinguishing?"

"Yes," Charles started murmuring to himself, "that should narrow things down considerably for my research."

Just then Dumbledore spoke up, "Did you kill them Miss Johnson?"

Hermione's cheeks flamed, "No, I just threw them off the train."

Dumbledore turned to Charles and raised his eyebrows, "You'll have to hurry about training her and researching about these demons. No one knows when those things will come back for her. They could attack from anywhere."

Charles said nothing but nodded, but Hermione spoke up, "what do you mean 'attack'? When I signed up for this I didn't know I was going to be attacked at all!"

Both men turned to look at Hermione with serious looks on their faces. They both knew that she was really young, and she would be fighting for the rest of her life. "May," Dumbledore started up, "you know you didn't really sign up for this. It is an honor to be chosen from millions of girls to protect the world from evil forces."

"And I'll teach you to react to attacks," Charles jumped in, "you'll be so ready, it won't even be a surprise when it happens."

Hermione sighed reluctantly, "okay. As long as I feel ready about it."

"You will," Dumbledore and Charles chorused.

They all sat in silence for a while, adjusting to what was going to be when Hermione suddenly remembered, "Professor Dumbledore, when I was on the train, right before I fought those demons, well, there were no students in that part of the train…it almost seemed as if they disappeared."

Hermione watched Albus closely for his reaction. The information didn't seem to surprise him, he nodded. "Yes, indeed Miss Johnson. Students have been going missing. Its been troubling me greatly, the parents will start writing soon, and then the Daily Prophet will soon find out, then the ministry will come…" he trailed off, looking quite troubled.

Hermione patted his arm absent-mindedly. "Its okay," she comforted, "we'll find out what's going on. I'm almost sure the demons are connected to the missing students. So, if I find the demons, I'm sure the students will be right there."

"Exactly how many students are missing, Albus?" Charles questioned, looking worried.

The old headmaster shifted uncomfortably, "As of now…eight…but I'm hoping to find them soon."

Hermione's eyes widened, "Eight? That's certainly a lot. How did anyone not notice anything yet. I would say it should be obvious that they're gone."

"No one knew them. They were all first years," Dumbledore replied.

"First years? But why would someone want to kidnap first years. They're no threat at all, they're only starting to learn magic," Hermione thought out loud.

Charles spoke up, "Maybe someone didn't want any first years to come to the school this year?"

"But some did come, we had nine others," Albus contradicted.

"Well maybe whoever is doing this is just glad they got a few," Hermione sighed, "maybe whoever it is wants the light side to be narrowed down…"

A silence.

"Voldemort."

It was more a statement than anything. Both men looked up at Hermione, confused. "What does Voldemort have to do with any of this?" Dumbledore asked.

Hermione summarized her thoughts, "Well, that basics that we know are that the dark and light sides have always been fighting. So it makes sense that Voldemort would team up with a group of uglies to do his bidding of shaving off the weak end of the light side, right And I have been having strange dreams about him..."

"It does make sense," Charles agreed, "but there are so many other things that could have happened. It possibly could not involve Voldemort at all."

Hermione nodded, understanding, "I know, we really do need to research," Hermione glanced at her watch quickly, "but I need to get to class, so I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay?"

Charles nodded in agreement, "'Bye." Dumbledore also waved and both men watched as she skipped off to class.

:-)

Hey guys, so I'm done writing this chapter and I've just re-read it and I know some of you are going to hate me because I said there'd be action in it but I thought this would be a good place to cut it off. There was a little bit of a romantic scene, we met the watcher (by the way what do you think of him?), our problems are set out in front of us…I didn't want to go too long, so vwalla…this is the chapter. It's al necessary for the story though, just so you guys understand…hope you adored it! I absolutely swear there will be violence in the next chapter kay? Oh and I owe you guys tons of kissed for the awesome reviews! Thanks to: hyperkitti (thanks for the advice, i'll try to take most of it...and I might take you up on the beta offer, when I have the next chapter i'll send it to you :P), LilyFan78 (thanks! don't worry, I won't just end it, i stick with my stories), amrawo (hope you absolutly cherish this chapter LOL), AidenShadowBreeze (I updated, hope you love it), and Reanne1102 (thanks).

Love and smooches,

Sakura-sweeti

Next chapter: Hermione trains with Charles and then goes off to hunt vampires…but someone sees her! Stay tuned…