A/N: I hope everyone was able to enjoy the holidays and I want to wish you all a late but Happy New Year! Here's another chapter, I hope you like it!

Enjoy ^^

"Hey," she said as she took a seat next to Sirius. "Are the others at the prefect meeting?"

"Yeah." He was looking at her, appraising her. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, especially since Molly forbade me to help around the house."

He kept looking at her, making sure she was telling the truth. He saw she still had some cuts on her neck. "What about these cuts?"

"Oh," she said, raising her hand to her neck, touching the cuts. "They will scar. It's okay though," she went to assure him. "I've had worse things happen to me, so a few cuts is nothing."

This was nothing? She had had worse done to her? How is getting so injured that you have to go to the hospital nothing? What can be worse than that? Especially since she's still a student.

He got this look in his eyes. She knew that look all too well. It was the look he got when he disagreed with something that she said or did. The look he got right before they would start one of their many arguments. She didn't want to argue, not now. So she kept quiet, didn't say anything else, giving him the chance to calm down.

"What were you talking about before I came in?"

"Nothing, really," Peter answered. "Without James and Remus it's a little difficult planning pranks."

"Have you seen Alice and Marlene yet?"

"No, but they'll probably stop by some time later." She hummed.

"Mione, what exactly happened for you to get so injured that you had to go to St. Mungo's?"

"I'll tell you later."

"That's what you said at the hospital. You can't avoid answering." He was getting irritated, wanting to know what had happened, who had hurt her.

"I know what I said and I meant it. I'd just like to tell you when the others are there as well. I don't want to tell it more than I absolutely have to."

The irritation left him automatically. He could understand that. Even if she claimed she had had worse done to her, this couldn't have been easy. "Okay," he relented.

They fell silent and her eyes began to feel heavy. Even though she didn't hurt anymore – not really anyway – she still felt somewhat tired at times. She put her head on his shoulder, a move that had become quite common between them. "Tired?" he asked. He only got a hum and a nod in reply. That was enough of an answer for him.

She didn't know when exactly she had fallen asleep but apparently she had slept for the entire train ride, slowly being woken up by Sirius shaking her shoulder. "Mione, we're here."

She opened her eyes, blinking. Realizing she had slept for several hours, practically trapping him between herself and the window, she said, "Sorry."

"Don't worry. I don't mind."

"Are you still feeling tired from what happened?" Remus asked.

"Sometimes."

After dinner that night Dumbledore made a small announcement. "The next thing I have to say is something regarding to the Hogsmeade visits." This caught the attention of most students. "During Christmas break there was a rise in attacks from Voldemort's followers." Here he looked straight at Hermione for a moment. Students began to protest, suspecting they wouldn't be allowed outside of the grounds anymore. "Please, calm down. I will not cancel the trips to Hogsmeade. I do, however, ask every single one of you to be cautious and to stay in groups. Extra measures will also be undertaken by the professors. But as of yet, there is no need to be worried. Now, off to bed."

Hermione, Lily and the marauders didn't go to the Gryffindor common room, however. They went to James and Lily's quarters. After all, Hermione had promised to tell them what had happened but she didn't want to do that in a room full of people.

"Okay, so now that we're all here, what happened that day?"

Hermione took a moment to gather her thoughts. "Lily and I had taken Charlie and Bill out for the day. They wanted to see her again since it had been a while so we took them to Diagon Alley. Everything was fine at first. Right?" she asked the redhead.

"Yeah, we just took them to some shops and got them some ice cream."

"Then what happened?"

"I saw a group of wizards who looked like trouble, like they were followers of Voldemort. I told Lily to take the boys and go home. But they saw us and –" she trailed of.

"And what?"

"The witch that approached us, that attacked me… It wasn't my first confrontation with her." It wasn't her second either but it was not like she could tell them that.

"What do you mean not your first confrontation?"

The brunette let out a sigh. "This summer when I was getting my books, Charlie threw a fit and tried to run away from me when I went to pick him up to go back home. He ran into someone and that someone was that witch. She wanted to touch him, hurt him and I – I just slapped her, wanting to keep Charlie safe. You could say she wasn't exactly happy about that."

"What did she do then?"

"Nothing. Mr and Mrs Weasley came up to us as soon as they noticed something was wrong. She just left when she saw them."

"So she attacked you now for the incident this summer?" Remus asked.

"That makes sense. It would explain why she said all of that," Lily said, silently as if she didn't mean for others to hear. But they did.

"She wanted to get back at me by hurting the boys. She sent some curse towards Lily, seeing as she had the boys and I just jumped in front of them, telling her to run."

"You had no idea how much I wanted to help you. And the boys they were crying so much, not knowing what was going on."

Hermione took Lily's hand in hers, giving it a squeeze and sending her a reassuring smile. "I told you to take them back home and you did. That was the most important thing, so don't worry about anything, okay?"

"What happened after I left?" It was like she was hesitant to ask.

"It's all kind of a blur really." Should she tell them about the fact that she was hit with the cruciatus curse? Had someone already informed them about that? Best to play it safe and tell them the truth. "I know we were both throwing curses at each other. I was able to give her several cuts but then suddenly I was thrown back against a wall and before I could do anything she was repaying me the favour." Her hand went to her neck as she told them this.

She was silent for a moment, contemplating if she really should tell them about the unforgivable curse. "What else happened?" James asked.

She let out a sigh, better to get this over with. Merlin knows they won't take it well either way. Not when they found out from her now, not when they would find out later from someone else. "When she was done cutting me up she used the cruciatus curse on me. The only thing I remember after that is that I woke up at St. Mungo's."

Silence filled the room. Someone had used an unforgivable curse. Hermione had been victim of the torture curse.

Lily broke the silence, hesitantly. "Is that why you had to stay at St. Mungo's even though your wounds were healed."

Hemione nodded. "They needed to check the curse hadn't left some kind of after effects."

"And are there? After effects I mean?" Peter asked.

"No."

Sirius hadn't said anything in quite some time now. He was thinking, fuming. She had been through that and he hadn't been able to help her, hadn't even been able to leave the house.

"Mione?"

"Hmm?"

"Who was the witch that attacked you? Did you recognize her?"

"That's not important. It's over now."

There it was again, that look. He was about to explode. "What do you mean 'not important'? She literally attacked you with an unforgivable curse."

"Hermione, Sirius is right. She attacked you, of course it's important."

"Lily –" she started but was cut off.

"Lily, you know who it was?" James asked.

"Yeah, I'm surprised Hermione even dared to fight her. When I realized that I was standing in front of Bel –"

"LILY!" Hermione cut her off, before she could utter the name. Her voice steady, commanding. She had never used that voice against Lily before. She gave the redhead a look, trying to bring her message across.

The interruption could hardly go unnoticed, the entire room having heard it. When Sirius also caught the look that passed between them he knew the brunette didn't want him to know something.

His voice was cold, stern when he spoke next. "Lily." She looked at him. "Who was it?" She hesitated, looking back between the two. "Lily," he said again.

She looked back at Hermione for a moment, trying to apologize through her eyes. Then she looked down and answered, "Bellatrix. It was Bellatrix."

They were all shocked for a moment. Most of them because Hermione had fought Bellatrix and had got away alive. But Sirius was shocked because Hermione had been hurt by someone from his family. His fucking messed up family.

He was angry, furious. He couldn't keep it inside. The hours and days of worrying, being agitated and angry because he couldn't help, having to wait for days to finally find out what happened and this is what he gets thrown to his head. His own family had hurt her. He just burst.

"So my own family hurts you and you think that it isn't important to let me know?! Why would you keep silent about that?! I swear if I ever see her in person I'll kill her myself!"

"Pads," James tried but Sirius just kept talking.

"My own fucking family hurt one of my friends and I couldn't even do anything about it! Now I'm away from that HELL HOLE and I still can't do a thing. I swear I'll kill her!" He was just raving now, needing to get everything out of his system.

"Sirius, stop. STOP!" She yelled. He looked at her then. Her voice was calm when she spoke next. "This is why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you would either act impulsively and do something stupid or you would blame yourself for what happened. I wanted to avoid this."

He stepped closer to her. His voice was calmer now. "How can you expect me to ignore that? My family hurt you and I couldn't do a thing."

"You weren't there. You didn't know it would happen."

This time it was Sirius who laid his head on her shoulder. "I can't stand it," he said softly. His voice was so quiet that she wasn't sure the others could hear him.

She just rubbed his back. "It's over now. It wasn't your fault."

They stayed like that for a few moments, forgetting the others were still there. It was one of those moments where they were only focused on each other, just like the many conversations in the middle of the night and the moments during the Christmas party. Only now he needed the comfort and she was there to offer it to him. They ignored everything else. At least for a while.