AN: Sunday, update day! I'm really starting to hit my stride I think with this story, it's so much fun to write! Let me know what you think!
Hermione's entire body was stiff and sore. She had told Sirius she would stay with him. They continued talking for a while but at some point in their conversation she noticed he had fallen asleep. His head was resting on the arm of the sofa, his chest rising and falling slowly. She felt her heart speed up, she suddenly felt unsure of what to do in this situation. Should she move him to a more comfortable position? Should she try to sleep on the other side of the couch? Reaching a decision, she had gingerly lifted his legs onto the length of the sofa and cast a cushioning charm under his neck so he wouldn't have a cramp the next day. She had cast a cushioning charm for herself on the floor adjacent to the couch and covered herself with a blanket that had been draped on one of the arm chairs. It wasn't the most comfortable but she didn't want to make any assumptions.
She opened her eyes, prepared to find a dying fire in the grate and a snoring Sirius behind her. Instead, she discovered she was lying on the floor of Sirius' bedroom, daylight filtering in through the windows. The faded Muggle posters were looking at her, as vacant and scantily clad as ever. How did she end up in Sirius' room? They'd fallen asleep in the sitting room… She felt a weight on her chest that hadn't been there when she'd closed her eyes. Sitting up slowly, she noticed the sapphire pendant on her chest. She felt panic rising. Scrambling to her feet she ran down the hallway.
"Sirius?" she called out. "Sirius!" she yelled louder, opening each door in the hallway. He was either a very heavy sleeper or… After not getting an answer back she scrambled down the stairs, out the front door and onto a busy London sidewalk. Her jaw dropped.
"What… the… FUCK."
Hermione was reeling. What had just happened? Had she traveled to another dimension? Had she perhaps only manifested in another dimension where Sirius happened to be trapped? Or had this all just been another strange dream? Not sure what else to do, she walked back into the house. She needed a cup of tea, maybe something stronger. What time was it anyway? She peeked at the grandfather clock in the foyer and saw that it was half past two in the afternoon. She had only arrived here a few hours ago, assuming she hadn't slept an entire day through.
The left side of Hermione's brain wanted to chalk it all up to stress. But as logical as she would like to be, she couldn't deny the visceral truth of the experience. She had been having strange dreams about Sirius ever since she had returned to Grimmauld Place a few short days ago. These dreams led her to a mystical artifact that clearly possessed unusual qualities to say the least, not to mention its ostentatiousness. If this necklace was enchanted, perhaps it acted as a portal between worlds. Something about her visit to the house had awakened it, however it had come to be in Sirius's things. The necklace was the door, sleep was the key to walk through it.
Now that she was awake, the pendant hung from her neck like any other piece of jewelry would. There was no mystical beckoning, she didn't feel any power emanating from it the way she had before.
She crumpled at the kitchen table, folding her arms and resting her head on their surface. Her anxiety was running high, questions swirling in her head like a tempest in a bottle. If Sirius was alive in a parallel universe, that might mean he was waking up to find her gone. He was alone again, probably feeling abandoned because she had disappeared despite promising to stay close. If Sirius was alive in that parallel universe, perhaps he had never died to begin with. It didn't explain everything, but it was perhaps presumptuous to assume he had died just because his body had vanished.
If she had gone to Sirius' world, how much time would pass while she was away? Would he age? Would he stay the exact same as she had found him? Was he like a beetle, frozen in time in a piece of amber? The stakes for figuring out what was going on were high—for Sirius' life, as well as for her sanity. Getting up from the table, she knew she had to do something. She climbed up the stairs to the Black family library and began gathering any book she could find that had anything to do with Morgana, enchanted jewelry, any mythical legend that could explain dimensional travel. She wished that she could find something on the Department of Mysteries or the veil hidden within the bowels of the Ministry, but even the Black family library didn't house volumes on government secrets.
She piled the books up in her arms and carefully made her way down the stairs. Closing the door firmly behind her, she turned on the spot and apparated into her foyer. She needed to start going through these right away. She vanished everything currently taking up space on her kitchen table and began to lay books out for research. The pendant still lay around her neck, just below her heart, as she skimmed and marked sections of relevant literature.
The sun was beginning to fall in the sky, the clouds were painted pink and orange, dancing in the corners of her windows. She didn't notice. Time was becoming more and more abstract as a concept the longer she remained connected to the mystery of Sirius and his ageless dimension. There were mentions of Morgana and her prized amulet, but no mentions of its capabilities. What powers it possessed were not recorded in the texts she had access to. Research on alternate dimensions was also quite limited, which Hermione didn't find surprising since it seemed to be a topic more aligned with the interests of muggle physicists. She felt tears start to well in her eyes in frustration. What was she doing? Was there any point to this? Would she ever be able to make contact with Sirius again?
She knew she couldn't mention this to Harry. Telling Harry meant confessing to some unusual visits to Grimmauld, as well as some contact with Sirius in dreams, as well as giving him potentially false hope about the retrieval of his godfather. Hermione wondered, could anyone wearing Morgana's pendant access the time pocket that Sirius had fallen into? Or was it just her? She wouldn't dream of getting Harry involved unless she knew more about the properties of the necklace and what the logistics of crossing over entailed.
Hermione did not notice the hands of the clock turning. Ten o'clock passed. Then eleven o'clock, then midnight. Around one in the morning her eyes began to droop. She rubbed them, hoping to massage away the blurry effect the pages were beginning to take on but it was futile. What if she just closed her eyes for a moment? A short doze wouldn't hurt, in fact, Hermione knew that it would help once she awakened again. Sighing, she kicked off her shoes and lay down on her sofa, covering her shoulders with an afghan.
She closed her eyes, and tried to allow her worries and cares to fade away. She was Hermione Granger, goddammit. When had she ever failed at anything that truly mattered? No one was more capable or qualified to unravel this mystery than her. No one was as motivated. If this amulet had chosen her to cross the barrier of space, then it had to be for a good reason. What if it was actually possible to remove Sirius from the pocket of time he had found himself in? What if there was a possibility of restoration?
She began to drift off, visions of Sirius dancing in her head. As thrilled as she would be for Harry, there was a large part of her that was humming at the possibility of bringing Sirius into her life in a permanent way. The dreams she'd had were impossibly vivid. She could practically feel his fingers inside of her wet heat that very moment, see his mischievous grin, hear his seductive dirty whispering in her ears. As she sunk deeper into sleep, the feelings became more consuming. His hands running down her legs, cupping her breasts, sucking her neck. It was heady, it made her feel reckless and alive for the first time in 6 years. He was touching her face, her arms, her thighs, her shoulders. He was shaking her by her shoulders.
This was not sensual. This was—what was going on? She felt his grip tighten around her shoulders, then he placed a hand behind her back. She felt a wall behind her. A wall? She was asleep on her couch? She blinked her eyes open to see Sirius staring at her with obvious concern. "Hermione?" he asked, alarm evident in his voice.
"Sirius, where-?" she queried groggily.
"Where do you think?" he replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"What happened?" She was back in the time pocket, it would seem. Was that all it took? Falling asleep? What was the trigger mechanism for this pendant, she wondered. It's behavior was not altogether consistent. It clearly was not tethered to locale since she had experienced dreams in her own home and now had returned to Sirius's universe (for lack of a better term). It also no longer exhibited a hypnotic function, leading her to believe that the object initially invoked obsessive thought to get her attention but having served its purpose it now functioned passively. She needed more time with the books she'd recovered from the Black library to ascertain what type of enchantment the necklace contained.
"What happened is that you told me you would stay with me, had disappeared when I woke up, and now I find you crumpled over at the top of my stairs," he answered curtly, interrupting her rapid fire logical deductions.
"How long was I gone?"
"A few hours maybe? I'm not sure, time isn't very regular here as you know," he huffed.
"Sirius, I'm so sorry, I didn't plan to leave you, I didn't realize I could," she tried to explain, putting a hand on the top of her throbbing head. Her entire body felt like it was pulsating.
"Sure, kid," he replied, interrupting her before she could make them both uncomfortable with her profusion of apologies. She took a better look at him now that her eyes had had a moment to adjust. God he was handsome, she thought to herself. He was propped in front of her leaning on one knee with his silky dark hair floating in front of his face. His grey eyes were piercing.
"Help me up?" she asked, lightheaded still. He rocked backwards, popping up on his feet. The way he carried himself, the way he moved… Hermione was used to clumsy, awkward boys. Sirius oozed charisma. He took her hand in his own and gently tugged her off the floor. "Thanks."
She now realized she had no idea what to do. Where does one go from here? She'd given him explanations before, she didn't need to fill in too many more of the gaps now for him about his life and his place in the world—or outside it, as it happened to be. What was she supposed to do next?
"Cuppa?" he asked, accurately ascertaining her bemused expression. He quirked a brow at her, the corner of his mouth hinting at a smile.
"Fuck it, we're English," she answered. His smile grew wide and he laughed.
"What's so funny?" she demanded from him.
"You," he answered. "Saying fuck? God you struck me as far more swotty and uptight than that!" he exclaimed, clearly reveling in the incredulity of her face.