"SIRIUS BLACK!"
All colour left Hermione's face, even her lips went white, as she, still clinging on her wand, slowly turned around, fearing that her trembling legs would give in. Just behind her, above the entrance door, hung a portrait of a handsome, expensively-clothed wizard with long, wavy, black hair, here and there already greying. Said wizard was portrayed sitting at a desk – the same ebony desk standing in the middle of the study, casually leaning behind in his intricately carved chair.
Sirius Black now rose from his chair and stepped forward, leaning against the desk, folding his arms and silently watching the girl. A playful spark twinkled in his usually tired, sad eyes.
"Hermione Jean Granger, we meet again," he said simply.
Her legs still trembling, Hermione inhaled sharply. It seemed to her that she'd forgotten to breathe and her body and brains were desperately craving for some oxygen. Having taken several deep breaths, she managed to regain complete control and made a step forward.
"Damn right we do, Sirius. Were it not for the simple fact that you're dead, I would have hexed you into oblivion for scaring the willies out of me like that," she muttered, flushing red from embarrassment. Then, realizing what she'd just said, she went pale and, dropping her wand, covered her face with her hands and started crying. Sirius watched her with a strange emotion on his handsome face which was difficult to decipher, a mixture of pain, sorrow and … amusement.
Raising her tear-stained face, Hermione hiccupped. "I'm so sorry, Sirius. I didn't mean all that. It still pains me, and especially Harry, every single bloody day, that you can't be with us anymore. He still blames himself, after all this time, of being the one causing your death."
"Next time you see him, Hermione, which probably won't take long, please kick his sorry arse for me, would you? Just be easy on him, promise, he's still my Godson," Sirius laughed, looking into her eyes. "Tell you what, you'll have a stiff neck very soon if you keep staring at me like this. You can levitate my portrait from the wall, if you want, and then we can have a more comfortable chat."
Muttering "Wingardium Leviosa", her trademark spell from 1st year, Hermione moved the portrait from the wall and carefully placed it on the very chair Sirius was portrayed in, leaning it against the back of the chair. Pulling another chair for herself, she sat down.
"How come you have a portrait here, Sirius? Who commissioned you?" she inquired, going into know-it-all mode.
"Simple. No one. The magic of the House automatically renders a portrait when the current Master or Mistress passes away. Only, I was deemed unworthy of joining the illustrious company of my Mother & Co, so I was placed here, as far away from them as possible," Sirius explained. "I see you got past Cereus the Cerberus," he laughed.
Hermione looked at him questioningly and he went on. "When we all were young, we'd regularly come up here, Bella, Cissy, Andy, Reg and myself, trying to sneak into this room. We were confident there would be some nice-and-nasty artifacts or stuffed house-elves..." The girl shot a murderous glance at the older wizard and he emitted a short bark-like laugh, apologetically smiling at her.
"Sorry, Hermione, I know about your S.P.E.W. We were children then, Reg about 3-4, Bella, being the oldest, in third year maybe. All raised in this bigotry, we knew nothing else. I'm glad that at least Andy and myself have had a chance for a normal life, that is, if 12 years of Hotel Azkaban can be considered normal," Sirius slowly raised his hand, pointing at his temple. "Bloody normal, if you ask me. So, one day, we came up here again and wanted to enter the study. Bella grabbed the doorknob and Cereus bit her hand. She spent a week at St. Mungo's, the others were told off. This was the first time I'd seen my father REALLY furious. Certainly not the last one, if I may add."
"Served her right, the bitch," Hermione pointed out. "I wish she hadn't been patched up then. The world would have been a better place without her and her likes."
"That one, you are damned right in, Hermione," agreed Sirius, nodding profusely. "I see you're growing up."
Smiling honestly, Hermione scratched her ear. "I started my growing-up process on the train when I repaired Harry's spectacles. Little had I known then what I was going to be facing later." Flexing her fingers, she started counting. "A mountain troll. A three-headed dog. A basilisk. Dementors, werewolves, dragons, giants, and giant pink toads," she continued, slightly out of breath. "And, if a dozen of the most dangerous Death Eaters weren't enough, as a topping there's this enormous, insensible git called Ronald Weasley," she emitted a frustrated sigh.
Feeling Sirius' questioning look, she snapped irritatedly. "Yes, I love him, alright?" Flushing prettily, she added, barely audibly, "three days ago, he finally admitted that he loved me as well and he kissed me..."
Sirius clapped his hands, visibly delighted with the news. "Lucky bastard, he is. I'd never seen my godson end up with you as all Potters seem to fall for redheads, and I would have never allowed you date anyone else, so end good, all good!"
"I can take good care of my love life, thank you very much!" retorted Hermione with a twinkle in her eyes. "Besides, I can't date my own brother, can I?"
Sirius fell off his chair with an audible thump! "Pardon me? Would you care to repeat that last sentence, sweetheart? Dead for a year and already missing so much fun!"
Half an hour later Sirius, thoroughly brought up-to-date with the developments of the last year, was sitting at his painted desk again, smoking a cigar, deeply immersed into his own thoughts.
"So, the game has started again and the dice are rolling," he mused, pointing his look somewhere, visible only to him. "He decided to go public, just like back then, so many years ago. Only, this time, his powers have grown and his followers are more numerous and more cruel than before. Does Harry know about that thrice blasted prophecy?"
Silently nodding, Hermione looked into his face with her warm, brown eyes. "Professor Dumbledore told him the night you..." she gulped, then continued, her voice barely above a whisper, "the night you died."
Sirius seemed to be pleased with the answer. He rose from his chair, and started pacing around the table, putting out his cigar. Carefully weighing his words, he asked. "So, he knows what awaits him at the end, right?"
"Sirius, please don't speak about him as if he were already dead!" Hermione begged. "He knows that sooner or later he has to face Voldemort tête-a-tête and he understands all too well that their standoff can end either way." Seeing the wolfish grin on Sirius' face, she cast an irritated glance at him. "What's so immensely funny about it?"
"Our task, Miss Know-it-all," Sirius teased her, not taking note of her clenched fist and her shallow, fast breathing, "would be to ensure that this standoff could end only one way. But before that, an announcement. Calm down, take a deep breath and look at me, will you?"
Having her full attention, he clapped his hands. "Hermione, my dear, I've been missing out on your last birthdays, due to some... unforeseen events. I'm fully intent to catch up on this." Seeing her trying to object, he stopped her with a simple hand gesture. "No, no, no, don't even try it, Hermione. See it as my last wish, if you would. You saved my life, for one, and you saved the life of that git of a godson of mine on more than one occasion."
Unable to utter a word, Hermione nodded silently, tears glistering in her hazel eyes. Sirius flashed her a thankful smile. "My present to you is what you've been craving for your entire life. Knowledge," he started in a somewhat theatrical way. With a broad gesture, he pointed around himself and continued. "The complete Black library, including every single book, sheet of parchment, everything you see around yourself now, is all yours. There's no one else, even Lily Evans, who could have made a better use of it, believe me."
Unable to suppress her cry of joy, the overwhelmed girl jumped up from her chair and pressed her lips at painted-Sirius' forehead. Now it was his turn to get startled.
"Hey! I'm too old for you!" he shooed her away, sending her a trademark Marauder wink. She flushed pink in an instant, but nevertheless, managed to retain her voice. "I'm so thankful to you, Sirius. It's my best birthday present ever," she smiled at him.
Sirius, however, turned serious. "Don't mention it, Hermione. Use it at your will; if someone, you will be able to find a method to bust old Baldyfart's sorry snake arse out of this world for good. Which makes me think. How many Horcruxes did Dumbledore think Voldemort had managed to make?"
Hermione was ready with the answer. "The Professor was positive about seven."
"No wonder there's nothing human left in him any more," nodded Sirius, deep in thoughts. "Accio 'Dark Magic at its Darkest'!" he intoned and stretched his hand, catching the huge folio soaring towards him in mid-air, but not without an effort. "This book, Hermione, you will certainly not find in Madame Pince's little empire. Start with this one."
The girl already summoned the book to herself, and Sirius barely managed to stop her before she could touch it with her bare hands. Following his directions, she levitated the book on the desk and randomly flipped it open with her wand. It was indeed an ancient one, bound in faded, yellowish leather, handwritten in something resembling red ink, and some of the illustrations made her stomach perform a somersault.
"Written in 1327 by nota bene a Franciscan monk, a distant relative to Salazar himself, later Slytherin headmaster, this book contains the most cruel, most horrible magic mankind had managed to produce to date. Compared to this, the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' is a fairy-tale. Never ever touch it with your hand. Don't sit more than fifteen minutes behind it. It will drain your magic and suck out your life-force," he warned the girl with a serious face. And indeed, as Hermione stared into the open book, she felt a chill climb up on her feet, squeeze her guts and slowly freeze her blood. It took her considerable effort to shake herself out of her half-lucid state and with an irritated gesture she snapped the book shut, causing it scream with frustration.
"Human skin, once belonging to a heretic, Hermione," Sirius said simply, foregoing her question, "and written in the monk's own blood at full moon. Blood, torture and killing have always been an integral part in Dark rituals. This is how Voldemort had made his Horcruxes as well. How many of those have you already managed to locate?"
By now, the young witch had completely recovered from her first encounter with the book and regained her clear thinking. Summoning a glass and a heavy crystal decanter of Firewhiskey, she poured herself some and swallowed it in one gulp. She coughed and sputtered as the strong drink burned her throat and intestines, but soon she felt considerably better.
"The first Horcrux was Tom Riddle's diary, destroyed by Harry in the Chamber of Secrets," she enumerated. "The second one was Marvolo Gaunt's ring, recovered by Professor Dumbledore. If our assumptions are correct, we have five more to go and they can be virtually everywhere in the world. Not a nice perspective and we are running out of time."
Sirius' face tensed up and he pressed his lips tight. Quite visibly, he was fighting an internal fight, When he spoke again, his voice was resembling that of an old, broken man.
"Three, Hermione. Only three. Voldemort retained a piece of his own soul and I'm afraid I know exactly where the last Horcrux is. It's within our reach."
"Harry..." whispered Hermione in a trembling voice. "The scar... the night Voldemort murdered his parents, he completed the ritual again..."
"...and it will be your task to extract this soul fragment from him before it completely takes him over," finished Sirius het thought, preventing her from saying it out loud. "That book may just provide the key to it."
"Sirius, I will help him, even if I have to give up my own life or soul to save him. I love that prat dearly!" Hermione burst out in tears. Sirius watched him sympathetically. "I know that, sweetheart. I do hope there will be an easier way, we just have to figure it out." Suddenly, Hermione felt a breeze, as if someone was caressing her hair, very lightly, with the tips of his fingers. Looking up, she met Sirius' glance and saw the older wizard smile.
"Hermione, I want you to see my belated birthday present to Harry. Would you be kind enough to open that cupboard there?" The young witch stood up and followed his instructions. From the cupboard she produced a flat item, maybe ten by fifteen inches, wrapped in soft, wine red velvet.
Heeding his urging gesture, she carefully placed the package on the desk, broke the Gryffindor seal on it and started carefully unwrapping it. When she was done, she flashed a beautiful, warm smile at Sirius, then turned her attention towards the gift.
"Mr. Potter, Mrs. Potter, nice to meet you, at last," she spoke softly.