AN: Okay, I SUCK big time I know for leaving this story where it was awhile back, but honestly between work stress, school stress, and life stress I was not able to continue this story the way that I wanted to at the time I began writing it. Now I'm done with grad school, work has settled down, and I'm getting my personal shit together (shout out to my therapist and a reminder to all of you to seek out mental health resources when you need them!) so I can pick up where I left off. I've gone through the previous four chapters and added some new stuff if you want to read again to refresh yourself! I'll feel out how often I can regularly get a chapter out and let y'all know the update schedule. Can't wait to dive back in and hear your thoughts! Sorry in advance for the extensive dialogue.
Hermione knew what the inside of a dream felt like. She felt somewhere between waking and dreaming in her current state, but the longer she remained in the dream the more real it felt, until she suddenly could no longer tell the difference. Her vision sharpened, the feeling of the ground under her back, head, legs became visceral. Taking in her surroundings, she noticed she was in a comfortable den. The windows had grand, dated draperies, a bookshelf leaned against the far wall and a few picture frames were arranged intermittently around the room, their inhabitants currently sleeping. There was an old, crushed velvet clawed-foot sofa and a fire in the grate and a worn carpet beneath her. Slowly, head still rushing, she sat up and swept her hands over the rug. It was soft to the touch. Wherever she was, it had to be real... didn't it?
Tentatively she picked herself up off of the ground. Gripping the back of the sofa she steadied herself and stood upright. She gasped when she looked down and saw a sleeping figure lying on the couch. Her audible surprise at finding herself not alone must have awakened her companion because his eyes opened, and widened, at the sight of her. Still groggy, he scrambled into a defensive seated position and blurted, "Who the fuck are you?"
Taking several alarmed steps back, Hermione opened and closed her mouth like a fish. "I... uh..." she was struggling to put the words together. She took another step back and felt something sharp and acutely painful underfoot. "Ahh!" She crumpled to the ground, continuing to scramble away from the stranger. He had sprung to his feet in shock and took stock of the woman that had intruded on his slumber.
As she composed herself, she became aware that he was evaluating her. She, on the other hand, did not need to size him up to know who he was; young Sirius Black was standing across the room from her. What… the bloody hell… was going on?!
"Sirius?" she asked tentatively.
"You know my name?" he replied in confusion.
"Yeah, I do… I mean, I know you. Knew you. Will know you? I'm sorry, I don't really understand what's happening right now." She picked herself up off the floor again, keeping some distance between herself and young Sirius.
"Do you get to know the names of all the people whose houses you break into or just mine?" he queried.
"Break in? I woke up on your floor!" she answered incredulously.
"If I might, I suggest coming up with a better excuse next time you get caught burgling? That one falls a little flat, if honest feedback is welcomed," he shot back. He maintained the perturbed façade well enough, but Hermione had just enough knowledge of the man to know when he was secretly amused with himself.
"It's not an excuse," she huffed. "Besides, do you really believe that just anyone could break in to this house? It's Unplottable and covered in Notice-me-Not charms, it would hardly be easy for a random burglar to enter," she reasoned with him.
"Okay, so you're smarter than the average burglar," he quipped.
"If I happened to be a burglar, yes, I think it's fair to say I would be," she retorted. "I've been at 12 Grimmauld Place countless times but I don't remember this room…" she trailed off while glancing around the room in question.
"You've been to my house before?" Sirius was beginning to genuinely wonder what the hell was going on.
"Yes, I—well, the Order was using it as a headquarters—"
"The Order of the Phoenix?!" he cut her off. "The Order of the Phoenix is using this house as a headquarters? Are you pulling my leg?" he demanded. Hermione didn't know what to say, she just continued to stare at him wide eyed while she searched for the words.
"The Order is—was—using the house as a headquarters, but not while you were a member. Well, not the first time you were a member—after Voldemort returned—"
"What do you mean returned? Do you mean he was defeated? But that he somehow regains power—" Sirius interrupted.
"Yes and yes," Hermione sighed, exasperated with the directions the conversation was taking. She felt like she'd just been released from a Full Body-Bind Curse and a Confundus Charm and had not yet gained her bearings enough to explain herself in an organized fashion. She hardly knew what was happening herself without trying to explain it to someone else.
"What, did you take a spin with a Time Turner or something? Here I was just thinking you broke into my house while I was sleeping," he asked.
"No, I mean, I have used a Time Turner before but they're all destroyed now. I'm—I'm honestly not sure if this is even real, is this another dream? Have I travelled in time? Where—where exactly am I?" she rambled, talking to herself more than to Sirius. He looked bewildered at her unusual explanation.
"It's a long, long story," Hermione said finally. She paused, then took a tentative step towards him. They were now standing close to one another on opposite sides of the sofa. They continued to hold eye contact, waiting for the other to speak first. Finally, he broke the silence. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Hermione. Granger," she added as an afterthought.
"So muggleborn then, or at least half blood," he mused.
"Yes, I'm a muggleborn, no need to be rude about it," she replied, caught off guard by young Sirius' mention of blood status. She had never known him to be prejudiced, just the opposite in fact.
"No, that's not what I meant," he blushed, realizing how he must have sounded. "I just meant, your family name isn't familiar to me. I'm from an uptight blood supremacist family so I know all the old names. I don't have any reference for you," he explained quickly. She raised an eyebrow at him, walked around the sofa and took a seat. He followed suit.
"Good to know you still diverge from your family in that respect," she remarked, brow still pointedly arched.
"You know my family?"
"God, no!" she exclaimed. "Thank Merlin I don't. More like, I know about them. By reputation. Bad reputation of course."
"I commend your good taste and wish I could say the same," he remarked cheekily, reclining on the couch and crossing his ankle over his knee in an instinctively cocky posture. He certainly possessed the natural masculine charisma of a handsome, wellborn, wealthy man. She blushed as she remembered the things they had done together in her dreams. Now that they were in such close, comfortable proximity, it was difficult to meet his eye without imagining the things he had done to her, the places he had kissed… she snapped herself out of it before she lost her composure.
After several moments before he asked, "Okay, Hermione the muggleborn. Tell me how you came to be here, in my sitting room."
How to begin? If she had traveled in time, she shouldn't be revealing secrets of the future carelessly, especially to a man as reckless as Sirius. She didn't know where in the timeline she had fallen. Were Lily and James in hiding? Had Peter been made secret keeper? Had Snape offered his services as a double agent yet?
"I think it might be better to know… what do you know?" she asked.
"What do I know?" he raised an eyebrow and pointed to his chest, a little taken aback. She perched on the edge of the sofa, her problem solving
"Listen, I don't have to explain to you, you're not stupid. Time is fragile. If I have somehow managed to travel to the past, completely by accident I might add, I could do great damage by sharing details of the future with you. I might already have done damage simply by telling you what I already have. Make sense?" she explained.
"Touché,"he remarked. He appeared to retreat into deeper thought. Finally, after a long silence he spoke.
"Okay. What do I know? That's honestly difficult to say. Truthfully, your appearance here is not the first abnormal thing to happen to me lately. In fact, your appearance is quite welcome all things considered, I've been in an unusual situation here for the last several months."
"What unusual situation?" she asked. He took a breath before answering.
"I would ask you to keep an open mind, but in light of your literal appearance out of thin air, I think you can handle it."
"Sirius, just tell me," she prompted flatly, ready to hear almost anything at this stage.
"So, before you arrived, I was… to the best of my knowledge… the last man on earth."