Disclaimer: If you recognise it - I don't own it. I most certainly don't own Harry Potter and as a result sadly not Sirius either..

A/N: what do you know? 2 chapters in a week! I hope you enjoy this - it's a little more light hearted than the last few, as I felt that even I needed some relief from writing all the drama and angst!

So, read away, and don't forget to tell me what you think... *nudges towards review button* ;)

Chapter 15: Young Blood

Teddy giggled happily as Sirius transfigured his spoon into a little metal sailing boat that bobbed across his bowl of porridge. Hermione listened to Teddy's happy burbling and watched Sirius' face light up with every laugh and delighted squeal the toddler made. She could imagine this is how he would have been with Harry and for a moment the thought made her inexplicably sad, not for Harry, but for Sirius and all those moments he missed out on.

"Watch out for the sea monster!" Sirius called to his little boat as he waved his wand at a sugar spoon. The sugar spoon melted away and became a tiny Loch Ness monster rearing up at the metal boat. "Oooh!" Squealed Teddy clapping his hands as the porridge monster did a rather impressive back flip over the boat.

"What have I told you about playing with your food, Sirius?" Remus laughed as he sat down stirring his tea.

"Sorry, Mum," Sirius smirked.

"Sirius silly," Teddy said seriously. "Is Daddy," his pudgy finger pointing at Remus.

"That told you," Hermione said, smiling over her coffee cup.

"I stand corrected!" Sirius laughed, putting his hands up in defeat. He waved his wand at the porridge and the boat and monster returned to spoons. "Now best eat up that porridge fast Ted, before that sea monster comes back and gobbles you up instead!" He said waving his fingers at the currently wavy black haired boy who laughed and dug into his breakfast happily, if messily.

Hermione leaned forward to pick up the pot of hot coffee and refill her mug. The fresh brew smelt delicious and blew away any cobwebs that sleep had left in her head. Real magic, she thought as she took a slow sip. "So what have you boys got planned for today then?" Hermione asked smiling as three faces looked up at her, all in various stages of eating a mouthful of porridge.

"We're going to go see Mummy and then go to the park, aren't we Teddy?" Remus said after finishing his mouthful.

"Bring Mummy flowers?" Teddy asked with a full spoon dropping blobs of porridge down his pajama top.

"What kind shall we bring her this week?" Remus asked, his eyes betraying a little sadness.

"The pink fooshus," Teddy said with a satisfied nod.

"Pink fuchsias it is," Remus agreed.

"This kid," Sirius said nodding at Teddy. "He's smart - at his age I couldn't tell my arse from my elbow!"

"You still can't," Remus said, a spark back in his eyes.

"How rude!" Sirius said.

"Arse," Teddy supplied helpfully.

"Sirius!" Hermione exclaimed horrified. "You have to watch your language around him!" She looked at Remus for support. Remus was trying to give his friend a look of fatherly disapproval - it wasn't quite working.

"Oh, don't be such a prig Hermione, Teddy'll forgotten it in an hour - won't you kid?"

"Arse, arse, arse…"

"Sirius I can't believe you," Hermione huffed. She probably would have continued to scold Sirius if Remus hadn't suddenly burst into peals of laughter. But his laughter was infectious and before long all three adults were sat laughing into their morning drinks.

Hermione took a deep breath and had to purse her lips to fight off anymore laughter. "McGonagall!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Pardon?" Hermione asked.

"McGonagall pulls that exact same expression when she's got to tell you off but secretly finds it funny!"

"Are you telling me I look like a witch who was in her fifties when you were at school?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sirius opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for some sort of smooth reply.

"So what are you doing today?" Hermione asked him, putting him out of his misery.

"I am going to Gringotts to check my account is all in order and then I'm going to buy myself a nice up-to-date wardrobe," he said triumphantly. "Fancy coming?"

"I'm working until four," Hermione said miserably.

"I'll meet you after and then we can all meet back here for dinner!" he said enthusiastically.

"Okay…but I can't promise I'll be the best company," Hermione warned.

"I'm sure I'll change that," Sirius said with a flirtatious wink.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Right, I suppose I should start getting Teddy ready," Remus said standing up and collecting his son who appeared to be wearing half his breakfast.

"Mmm, work time for me," Hermione said and drained the rest of her coffee.

"Excellent! We can't be sitting around on our elbows all day can we?" Sirius said. His barking laugh followed Hermione all the way out of the front door and made her smile.

o0o0o0o0o

Hermione walked into the Department of Mysteries and made for her office, pleased to see that everyone seemed to be behaving normally and nothing else seemed to happened in her absence. As she passed Director Robards' office she was surprised to see someone sat in the seat behind the desk.

"Ah! You must be Miss Granger!" The person in Robards' seat said as they saw her. "Do come in," they invited.

Well he certainly wasn't Robards, Hermione thought wryly as she entered the office.

"Xavier Heath," the man said and extended a hand. Hermione shook his hand politely and took a seat that he gestured towards. "I'm sitting in for Director Robards whilst he's... otherwise indisposed," Heath said smoothly. Xavier Heath was, Hermione thought, a rather attractive man. He had silvery blonde hair that was brushed neatly away from his face, a strong nose and jaw, and very pale blue eyes. He rather put her in mind of a cross between Mr Malfoy and a male Fleur Delacour.

"How can I help Mr Heath?" Hermione asked politely.

"I merely sought to introduce myself," he said observing her over long, gracefully steepled fingers. "From the records you seem a rather promising young unspeakable; it's good to see some young blood in the department," his eyes looked her over and Hermione had the uncomfortable sensation that his pale blue eyes were looking through her rather than at her.

"Thank you," Hermione replied. "Although you don't seem too old yourself Mr Heath."

Heath laughed a soft breathy laugh. "Indeed, although I fear I've been blessed with looks far below my years!" Heath took a sip of water from the glass on the desk. "I must admit I am particularly intrigued by your latest area of study," he said gesturing to her report that lay on the desk next to him.

"It is a fascinating area of magic," Hermione replied a little defensively.

"Don't get me wrong, Hermione," he said with a wave of his hands. "May I call you Hermione?"

"Of course," she said, caught slightly off guard.

"I'm not questioning the validity of the work, I'd have to be an imbecile to. However, such things…the barrier between life and death and so on…have been an interest of mine for quite some time," Heath explained.

"Oh, I see!" Hermione said, brightening a little at his apparent interest.

"So tell me, Hermione," he pressed his fingertips together again. "How would you feel about studying the Veil a little more?"

"In what capacity?" She asked, intrigued.

"Well, you've proven already that it is possible not only to pass through the Veil and return but that it is also possible to bring someone back from the Beyond… perhaps it would be in the interests of knowledge to investigate the extent to which we can bring people back?" Heath regarded with a cool but interested expression.

Hermione considered his suggestion with a furrowed brow. It was certainly an intriguing idea but all her research into the Veil had suggested that whatever was beyond the Veil was not where souls went unless the body had physically passed through it. Not to mention the potential for abuse of such knowledge if she did discover a way for people to return. But then, the department of mysteries was there for the investigation of that very sort of dangerous information. It was very tempting for the pursuit of knowledge and the possibility of answering such existential questions…

"Of course you have a lot to consider before taking on such a large task, especially with so much going on in your personal life," Heath said silkily.

"You know about Ron?" She asked perplexed for a moment.

"It's been all over the Prophet," he said with a shrug.

"Ah," Hermione cringed at both the thought of Ron's misfortune selling papers and her own oversight.

"I don't expect you to make a decision today, just…think about it…" he said with a smile. "Now I'm sure you'll want to return to your office and start examining and cataloguing the remaining objects from the room you found."

"Uh… thanks," she said, still thinking about his offer. "Nice to meet you," she added as she stood up.

"The pleasure was all mine," Heath purred as she left.

o0o0o0o0o

Her hair was doing its best to escape the bun she had pulled into that morning as Hermione left the office and made her way to the floo. She had spent her afternoon looking over what appeared to be almost entirely useless objects and she was only half way through. In the six boxes currently clogging up her office, she had so far found 77 broken quills, 50 sickles from varying centuries, and what appeared to be a doodle pad probably belonging to some bored unspeakable from years gone by. It was safe to say that she doubted she would be finding anything useful, but all of it had to be catalogued - useless junk or not.

Hermione stepped into green flames and instructed the floo. She half-tumbled out into the middle of the Leaky Cauldron and wiped the soot from her face on the side of her cloak.

"Hermione!"

She looked up at the sound of her name to see Sirius pushing past tables and chairs brandishing a ridiculous number of bags.

"What is all that?" she asked nodding to his multitude of bags.

"I needed muggle and wizard clothes - you wouldn't believe the amount of variation in underwear muggles have!" he dug around in one of the bags.

"No really, it's okay Sirius, I believe you," she said covering her eyes with her hand. "I don't need a visual demonstration."

"Worried you won't be able to stop thinking about me in them?" Sirius asked with a grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Sirius!" Hermione complained, rubbing her face to get rid of nonexistent soot to hide her blush.

"Now come on, I'm treating us to an ice cream and I want to see the Weasley shop!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him.

Sirius bounded into the ice cream shop like a child and stood observing the huge numbers of flavours greedily. "What do you want?" he asked rubbing his hands together.

"I'll get this," Hermione said, going to pull her purse out.

"No, no," he said stopping her hand gently with his. She blushed at the contact. "I'll get it, really, I won't accept any other answers but 'yes Sirius, thank you Sirius, you are the most handsome and generous wizard in the world Sirius', alright?" He flashed a grin at her. "Now what would you like?"

"Uh…I'll have rum and raisin please," Hermione conceded with a sigh.

"Rum and raisin?" Sirius asked with raised eyebrows. "I always had you pegged as a vanilla girl," he grinned.

Hermione felt her face flush again. She needed to stop doing that. "Just order the damn ice creams Black," she muttered.

"Fine," he said with a dramatic sigh and flick of his long wavy hair. "A rum and raisin and a tutti-frutti, please," Sirius requested somehow managing to say the word tutti-frutti with aristrocratic grace.

Hermione enjoyed the ice cream as she and Sirius wandered down towards the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shop. "Nice," Sirius muttered in appreciation as the shop and its extravagant decoration came into view.

"Mrs Weasley thought the twins were going to get themselves killed with this place in the war," Hermione said with a smile.

"Why? Surely everyone needs a laugh - even Death Eaters?" Sirius snorted. Hermione found herself transfixed by the way Sirius' tongue darted over the ice cream.

"They had all these posters up," she continued, ignoring Sirius and his ministrations to the ice cream. "Saying: Why are you worrying about You-Know-Who? You should be worrying about U-No-Poo the constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!" She laughed as Sirius roared with laughter.

They entered the shop once they had finished their ice creams and before she had even properly taken in her surroundings Sirius was off examining products and making a approving chuckles. "George!" Hermione exclaimed at the redhead behind the counter.

"Hello, Hermione, how you doing?" he replied with a tired smile.

"Good, thanks. Sirius and I were just taking a walk around the Alley and thought we'd stop in and say hi. How are you?" She asked leaning on the counter and watching some pygmy puffs roll around squeaking in their cage.

"Same old, same old, just keeping this place ticking over," he said. "Can I interest you in a love potion or have you got that covered?" George said with a nod at Sirius as much of a grin as he gave these days.

Hermione slapped him playfully on the arm.

"Oh, hi," Ginny said as she appeared from the back of the shop.

"Hello Ginny, what're you doing here?" Hermione asked with a smile.

"Oh just helping George out - I don't mind though, he lets me play with the pygmy puffs," she said with a smile. "They're just so cute!" she said tickling one through the bars of a cage.

Hermione thought of something as Sirius came over to pay for a ridiculous amount of products. "Did you ever catch up with Harry the other night?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Ummm… yes… I mean no… he uh disapparated…" Ginny said, shuffling from foot to foot. "I'd better get going - Mum'll want me to help with dinner…" she left through the back entrance.

"That was weird," Sirius said, scoffing.

"Harry's a weird subject with her," George sighed. "One minute she's crying over him, the next we're not allowed to mention his name, then she desperately wants to see him. I have no clue," George said with a shrug as he punched items into the till.

"Did you end up seeing him? I've not heard from him for a couple of days?" Hermione asked as Sirius started counting out money.

"Afraid not, by the time I caught up with Ginny - and that girl can run - there was no sign of him - sorry," George replied.

Sirius handed the money over and practically skipped out of the shop after they'd said their goodbyes singing: "Remus isn't going to know what hit him!" as he rifled through the bag.

Finally back at Grimmauld Place and relaxing with a delightfully full belly of shepherds pie, Hermione balanced a parchment on her leg and began writing a letter.

Dear Harry,

Not heard from you since you left the other day, just thought I'd check in to see how you are really. I know it's really hard with Ron being so ill but I just thought I'd let you know that if you wanted to chat about it I'm always able to make time for you.

Things are normal here - I say normal, your ex-convict, ex-dead godfather is wreaking havoc. I made the mistake of taking him to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and so far this evening he's managed to catch me out with one of those damn punching telescopes (I know, right, the telescope caught me out again), gave Teddy a Canary Cream, and slipped Remus some U-No-Poo. Poor Remus, he's still not off the toilet yet.

I know you're probably busy with quidditch training for the European cup but do owl me - I was worried about you when you just left like that.

Lots of love,

Hermione.