A rambling note from this wretched fan fiction writer, full of lame excuses for treating this story and everyone who reads it disrespectfully

I realise I've turned into one of those untrustworthy writers who plans a great story, begins it, develops it, thinks about it both awake and asleep, and then ABANDONES it! When I open the e-mail account I have for this profile I still get followers, favourites, even reviews. For a story I haven't touched in more than a year. I am so ashamed. Bad, bad Kia!

Life has been difficult, on so many levels and than might be an explanation, but not an excuse. Lots of people have difficult, hard, sad things happening to them. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always. Or write fan fiction for them.

A couple of weeks ago I re-read my story and all your kind reviews, and I realised I just had to finish it. Maybe not the way I would have finished it if I hadn't gone on a 15-month vacation from my story, but with the same ending. Re-reading it I cringe at how much I've written about things that could have been dealt with in considerably fewer words. I lost speed somewhere in the middle. But this is a Sirmione story, and even though I've enjoyed writing Snape, McGonagall and Slughorn, I feel as if I've come miles off the track I set out. I'm finishing it because I remember how I felt about the story when I began it. I'm finishing it because of the satisfaction of editing the last chapter, which was already in my mind when I began.

So, with a few twists and jumps between my timelines I'm finishing it. The chapters are written, the end as well. I'll keep posting the chapters if someone reads them, but I fully understand if most readers gave up on me a long time ago.

The story will change its pace after the next chapter, and setting in time. I have tried to tie in loose ends I began in the early chapters, and I have dealt with a few ideas, that came up later, more lightly or even sketchily. I do this knowing full well that it would never be completed otherwise. I hope you will be able to follow and forgive me for what I am making these characters, who aren't even mine, do to each other.

And I solemnly swear I'll never start publishing a new story unless I know that I can finish it!

Love,

Kia

Chapter 23, Godric's Hollow, 1979

Hermione's POV

At dusk the four Marauders, Lily and Hermione sit in James's mother's garden, drinking gooseberry wine and try to convince themselves it's summer once again.

"Remember last June?" Sirius whispers to Hermione. "I was so afraid you wouldn't come, but stay at Hogwarts or return to… wherever you said you came from then. I remember regretting I hadn't said 'I love you' before I left, and then I was sure I would have scared you off if I had. I love you. Then and now and all the tomorrows there are."

Hermione smiles, amazed by the honesty in his words.

"I love you, too."

"How about saying 'good night' and cross the street to our place?"

Her smile widens and she is just about to agree when Lily speaks to them all.

"I know you've been busy with the Wolfsbane Potion, and I'm so happy about the result. I know we all are." The other five nod in agreement. "But now we need to talk about something else. Another monster. There are more Death Eaters than ever, and they are gaining influence."

Sirius snorts.

"Death Eaters? They are just the pure-blood elite trying to show off. Apparently they need to prove how well they can master some gruesome Dark Magic to be allowed to join. My parents are Death Eaters, been for decades."

"You are both right and wrong, Sirius," Lily says. "Originally Death Eaters were, just like you said, a kind of elite with an obsession with old, Dark Magic. When your parents joined, Sirius, it was more or less an exclusive club within the Sacred Twenty-Eight."

"Yes," Sirius agrees, "and the chair, or president, or the wizard in charge or whatever, changed between the old families. Nott, Goyle, Malfoy, Lestrange. Father held it one year. Mother was furious that she couldn't be witch in charge, but they were strange that way, too."

"But it isn't just among the old pure-blood families they are gaining members now, Sirius."

"It isn't?"

"No. They find people who share their beliefs in pure-blood supremacy, particularly outside their own ranks. They want numbers, large numbers. And the wizard in charge hasn't changed for three years."

"It hasn't?" Remus asks.

Hermione bites her lip, well aware that she can't show the others what she knows. Her eyes burn with unshed tears when she thinks about the price of her silence and alleged ignorance. The lives of James and Lily to give their son the only kind of protective magic that will save magic mankind from Voldemort.

"No," says James, and stretches his arm along the backrest of Lily's chair. "This wizard Tom Marvolo is their leader. He has lived a secluded life up until now, and he still keeps a low profile, but the Sacred Twenty-Eight worship him."

"Marvolo?" Sirius says. "Dumbledore knows about him, and so does McGonagall. They think he's someone to watch out for."

"Indeed," Lily answers. "But where have you been the last six months? Everyone knows that. Either you want to join him or you want as far away as possible from him. There is no real neutrality any more."

Sirius sits up straight.

"As you say, Lily, we have been quite busy in Scotland, when James and I haven't been in training. And I chose to not listen long before that. I had enough of their out-dated beliefs while growing up. I always knew there was something wrong with them, but not that they posed any real danger. I thought they wanted to keep to themselves."

"Not any more. Now they want followers, and they are gaining them as we speak."

"What can we do?" Remus asks.

Hermione's head spins when she sees and hears both Sirius and Remus so almost unassertive about the dark times that looms ahead. In her own, original timeline they were always the experts, the planners, the ones who knew, without a shadow of a doubt how dangerous Voldemort's followers were. She is loathe to know how they will come to that knowledge.

"Albus Dumbledore came to see me a couple of weeks ago, in London," Lily continues"

"You haven't said," James says.

"No, he asked me not to until the end of term. But now we are here, at the end of term and we are all together." She smiles at Hermione. Hermione forces herself to smile back, feeling like she brings Lily a little closer to her death every minute she keeps her secrets and knowledge to herself.

"Dumbledore has begun to form an opposition. As secret and unassuming as the Death Eaters used to be, but with a real state of readiness and strategies for any possible move the people around Marvolo might pull."

"But where do they stand politically? The Death Eaters? What is the Ministry's view on Marvolo? Is he running for the Minister for Magic post?" Sirius seems to have an endless stream of questions, and Hermione recognises this from when she, Harry, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny eavesdropped at Grimmauld Place when Alastor Moody resurrected the Order of the Phoenix in 1997. Sirius wanted to know everything and then put the pieces together to form a larger picture. He does the same now, but Hermione doubts Lily has answers to all his questions. Hermione has almost all the answers, but she can't share them with the others. She looks across the table at Peter, who looks surprisingly calm. He wears a long-sleeved sweater in the warm summer evening. Everyone else is in short sleeves, Lily in a tank-top, and the truth dawns for Hermione.

He is already one of them. Under that thin, grey wool, there is a tattoo of a skull with a snake for a tongue. Already? But why? A year ago he was still one of the Marauders, and now he is one of them. Out of fear, when the safety of his Hogwarts year ended? Jealousy?

"Politically the Ministry is a mess. The Minister for Magic Harold Minchum tried to minimise the advisory role of the Secret Twenty-Eight in Parliament, when he came to power four years ago, but the last year he's been forced to agree to almost everything they want. He has a muggleborn wife. Apparently they are very happy, but the Sacred Twenty-Eight want to segregate muggleborns from the rest of the population. Dumbledore thinks that Minchum has made a deal to accommodate to some of their requests if they hold back this segregation bill in Parliament. But basically they can do whatever they want. If push comes to shove the majority of the governing body of Britain is probably Death Eaters by now. Openly or in secret. By their own free will and personal belief or by fear. They could stage a coup d'etat, if that would serve their purposes."

"Fuck me!" Sirius exhales.

"No thank you," Lily quips. "I leave that to Hermione, and I hate your language when you're angry or upset."

"It just happens when the conversation strays to close to Grimmauld Place and my parents."

You really hate that place. And that's where you were, more or less, kept prisoner after twelve years…

Hermione has to stage a coughing fit to mask her burning eyes and the lump of grief in her throat.

"OK," says Remus. "Let's not stray that way, then. This opposition of Dumbledore's, has it got a name? Can we join? Does Albus trust us enough? Why didn't he speak to me? We were both at Hogwarts?"

Lily smiles weakly.

"Don't you think, Remus, that he thought you had enough on your plate? This term? Every month? But yes, he wants us to join. He has enlisted quite a number of people. Frank and Alice."

James nods.

"Frank is good. He comes in to give lectures and work shops in the Auror training. When I said I was impressed with his hexing skills he just shrugged and said it was nothing compared to his wife."

Stop! Don't say another word. Peter will memorise every name, every address, every skill and weakness.

"And Marlene is back from Ireland. I think you'd be happy to know she has joined, Remus."

Remus just shakes his head dismissively, but Hermione can see that there is grief in his eyes.

"The Weasleys, Molly and Arthur. They are related to you, aren't they, Sirius?"

"Distantly. I don't know them."

"Well, Molly has five small boys, but she has sent them to a distant cousin on Ireland to keep them safe."

I never knew that. Brave, brave Molly. Would you have become my mother-in-law if things had turned out differently? Would we have become close enough for you to tell me what it was like to send Billy, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George away?

"He wants to meet us," Lily says. "Next week."

"Will he come here?" James asks. "There are several Dumbledore headstones on the cemetery here. He lived her when he was young, you know?"

"I had no idea." Remus shakes his head. "He never said. Did you know, Sirius?"

Sirius frowns before he answers.

"Yes, I knew. And I also knew that Dumbledore is secretive about it, but I don't remember why. He was friends with my uncle, but he never came here."

His sister died here. Maybe by his own wand, maybe by Grindelwald's. Bathilda Bagshot down the road could tell you more, but I don't think he will. Not until that obnoxious Rita Skeeter comes along.

"Anyway, he wants us to come to London. To the headquarters of this Order."

"Order? That's a big word," Sirius barks.

"He's a big man, magically," Lily retorts.

Hermione wishes she could convince Dumbledore to come to Godric's Hollow instead. She wishes she could do something to prevent Peter from learning the location of the Order's headquarters.

"He calls it the Order of the Phoenix."

"Oh, like his patronus," Hermione says, trying to sound surprised. She could have said anything; she just realised she had been quiet too long.

"It is?" Sirius raises an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"Well, it's the same Phoenix he keeps in his office, isn't it?"

"Does Dumbledore keep a Phoenix in his office?" James asks surprised. "I've never seen it, and I've been in there I don't know how many times during my seven years of pranking at Hogwarts."

Damn! OK. Obviously Dumbledore hasn't got a Phoenix in his office now. Yet.

She gives Remus a helpless glance and he smoothly covers her slip.

"No, it's rather new, I think. And quite often covered in ash and not really much to see."

"I guess he has a thing for Phoenixes, then," Sirius says. "Let's hope his Order won't catch fire too soon and need to be rebuilt from ashes."

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Stop saying those things, those prophesies.

"And now to something happier," James says with a wide grin. "After London and Dumbledore's bird club, and after summer, you are all invited to a party. A wedding party, actually. Because I have finally convinced this girl to marry me!"

And that will be the death of you both…

Happy shouts covers Hermione's grief, just barely, and she really tries to enjoy the happiness right now. James's mother comes out and joins them with bottles of gooseberry wine. It is very late when Sirius and Hermione finally, unsteadily cross the road to the dark cottage.

Sirius is in no hurry to open the door. He leans against the wall and watches the stars. Hermione steps into his embrace and does the same, remembering when Sirius and she walked back to Hogwarts from the cave he lived in during the Tri-wizard Tournament.

Then you had more answers than I. How difficult was it, Sirius? To know that I would come to know you when I was older, in a time that was already in your past?

"Beautiful," Sirius murmurs in her hair.

"Mm," she agrees.

"Like you."

"Did you just compare me to a vast, cold nothingness? Which I suppose is as difficult for you to focus on, as it is for me. That wine is really strong, isn't it?"

"No, just the level of beauty. And, yes, the wine is lethal. I have a sobering-up potion inside. Without it you'll have a hangover for two days."

She giggles. The here-and-now is suddenly overwhelming. The summer night, the holiday to come, Sirius arms around her and his breath on her skin, their state of inebriation.

Even if I have a hangover tomorrow, it doesn't matter. I, we don't have to do anything, not tomorrow, or the day after that. Next week we'll go to London, and history will play itself out. I'm merely a spectator. I know things that are gruesome, but it doesn't matter, history will have to repeat itself without my meddling. Up until the end of October 1981, then I will by Merlin meddle. I'd rather knock Sirius unconscious than letting him go after Peter for revenge…

Sirius hands are under her blouse, his teeth against the skin of her neck. The potentially lethal wine makes Hermione's head spin, and she lets him unbutton her clothes in the dark.

"I want you so much," he whispers against her skin "Now."

She can only hum in response, turn around in his arms and push his t-shirt over his head. The heat of his body against hers in the cool night air is as stirring as his kisses. When she closes her eyes vertigo grips her and she stumbles.

"We need to go in," she giggles. "I'm a bit too drunk to trust myself standing. Come."

"No." He pulls her back and pushes her against the wall. "I've got you. I won't let you fall." The contrast between the rough wall against her back and his warm skin against her chest is unbearably pleasurable. She wants him so much. Too much. Flimsy memories from the year before and their uncertainty when she came to Godric's Hollow flick through her mind, and she pushes them away. Here and now. His fingers are quicker than hers in her daze of alcohol and soon he's got her pinned between himself and the wall.

"Look at me," he whispers, and she does. His features are in shadow but she can see the glint in his eyes. "I want to marry you."

She giggles in response. She can hear the love in his voice, but the statement sounds ludicrous. He has her pressed against a wall, in a state of undress and inappropriateness her sober self would blush even to think about, and he proposes something she hasn't pondered since she was five years old and into the Disney version of Cinderella.

Slowly he bends his head, plants open-mouthed kisses along her throat and repeats his words. He moves slowly inside her, keeping her whole weight on his hips. The pleasure is torture. She aches for his love-making, and is not at all mentally sharp enough to tackle this. Saying no, but meaning yes, or saying yes and meaning no. He hoists her up an inch and the pleasure claims her whole being.

"Please," she whispers back. "Not now. I can't think when you… Oh… Don't stop…."

"Say yes."

"No. Not now. Sirius, you can't…"

"Yes, I can. Say yes, stubborn girl."

She clamps her thighs around him with such strength he moans. She drowns his mad suggestion with raw and deep kisses before she whispers into his ear.

"I say finish this and I won't say no. But only if you do so now."

He takes the challenge. He pulls her hands from his shoulders and holds them over her head, against the wall. The determination on his face is dark, and makes her shiver in anticipation. He decides their every move, and again Hermione finds it pleasurable to be in the here and now.

"You are mine, you know?" he rasps against her lips. "Only mine."

"Yes," she agrees in a whimper. "Yes, yes, yes."

Despite Sirius's sobering-up potion Hermione still feels a bit drunk the next morning. She wakes up before him, with the sensation of being on a boat. It's not unpleasant, just a reminder of sipping May Potter's home-made wine, rather than gulping it down.

Sirius sleeps next to her in the bed, his shoulder-long hair swept back, a shadow of stubble along his jaw. Hermione can easily see the older Sirius in his exposed face. He had been gaunt, almost emaciated the first time she met him, and his cheekbones as pronounced as in his young face now.

How will you look when you that old again? Less haunted? I hope… Oh, God, I hope my plan works. I can't let you be imprisoned in Azkaban again. How ever did you survive there?

Sirius stirs and lets his hand blindly search for her. When he finds her waist he pulls her close and buries his face in her hair. He takes a deep breath against the back of her neck in a decidedly canine way and his first, raspy words are along the same lines.

"You smell good. Like vanilla fudge. Peaches. Apples. Honey."

"You are an interesting species, Sirius. A vegetarian dog."

He chuckles behind her.

"I can smell other things, too. You are still a bit drunk. And you have plaster in your hair. Your hands are chafed from last night, sorry about that. And you bothered to brush your teeth last night, which I regrettably didn't. And me. You smell of me. I hate it when you don't smell of me."

His words are strangely arousing, and his hands wander slowly over her body and make her head spin.

"I thought I pulled these off last night," he mutters and pulls at her panties.

"Good, then you remember how to do it again."

She surrenders to sleepy morning sex and wonders who else will be able to smell him on her. And decides she doesn't care.

Later the same morning Sirius crosses the living room and collects a small wooden box from the wall of in-built shelves. He sits opposite her at the small kitchen table and rummages in the box, which content is hidden from her. When he holds up a diamond ring she inhales her tea and succumbs to a coughing fit. When she looks up, teary-eyed and with a stinging throat he smiles lopsidedly.

"Not the answer I wanted. And I haven't even asked you yet."

"Yes, you have," she croaks. "I remember. Last night."

"I didn't think you'd remember. You said 'not no'."

Did I?

Hermione takes his hands in hers.

"Sirius. Wait. I don't…"

"I don't want to wait. If times are as dark as Dumbledore suggests I want as much time with you as possible. And the world to know. I love you. I love you today and all the tomorrows to come. Don't you?"

The chair tumbles over when Hermione gets up, rounds the table and sinks down in his lap. She kisses him slowly before she creates enough distance to be able to focus on his features.

"Of course I do. All the tomorrows there are. But…"

"Don't give me 'buts', give me 'yes'".

"Sirius, I'm a time traveller. I've left another time. I'm not sure how that works, if my parents will have a baby girl in two years, and another, younger me will grow up in this time line. And what that Hermione will be destined to do. If history repeats itself I need to keep a low profile. I did… I was involved in… eh, a great conflict, on a national scale, I was… I can't tell you…"

"A war? Another war? Will there be a war now? How will it end? You know these things, don't you?"

Hermione silences Sirius with her fingers against his lips.

"Stop. Be quiet. I can't tell you the outcome. Not all of it. I know far more than I want. I want… I want what you want. To be with you. Peace. Absence of pure-blood supremacy."

"You know things that will happen." It only half a question. "Bad things."

Hermione nods.

"And you would be able to change them," Sirius continues. "If you know when or how someone will die, you could…"

"No! No, I can't! I'm not allowed, there are strict rules for time travelling. My mission is something else, I've told you that. The Wolfsbane potion. Lily. I can't tell you more. Please don't ask. Please."

Sirius grips her fingers and touches her left ring finger with the diamond ring.

"I won't if you'll wear this."

Hermione swallows and bites her lip.

What would be the harm?

She takes the ring and holds it between two fingers.

"Where does it come from?" she deflects.

"My uncle Alphard bought it a long time ago, when he was young. He'd met a girl he wanted to marry, but they never did."

"Why?"

Sirius frowns.

"Hm, this does not turn out the way I'd hoped. The girl was muggle-born and she… she died."

"How awful! What happened? An accident?"

"I don't know, for certain. She became ill with a rare strain of Dragon Pox and died within a week. No one else in this village got it, and it's very contagious."

"Yes, I know. Such a tragedy. Were they engaged when she got ill?"

"No, they were just about to, and had been to London to meet my uncle's parents, my grandparents. Alphard was my mother's brother. It was after that visit this muggle-born witch became ill and died. I've always wondered if it had anything to do with meeting the rest of my family. The didn't approve, of course."

"And they wouldn't approve of me."

Sirius regards her sadly.

"No, they wouldn't. But I do."

He leans in and kisses her neck and nibbles her jawline. Even though distracted she can feel him winkle the ring from between her fingers and begin to put it on her left ring finger.

"Stop, Sirius. Don't."

He pouts.

"I want to wear your ring, I really, really do, because I love you more that I ever thought I could love anyone. But since I've, we've, decided to break the rules of time travelling, with me not going back, I can't leave traces in any magical registers. I can never marry you, not under my own name. I can swear to everything one does in a wedding ceremony, but not officially. This Hermione needs to keep a low profile, to give the other one a chance to save… to help… to fight the battle I did a little more than a year ago, but in my future."

Sirius pulls her close and she feels his strained breaths in her hair.

"And I don't want to steal James and Lily's thunder. Their wedding must be their own. They will be so happy."

"Do you know that for a fact, my little time traveller?"

Hermione swallows.

"You just need to look at them now."

"Will you wear my ring if we don't register our engagement?" he whispers in her ear and she shivers, both from his voice and his words.

"Yes," she whispers back.

He stands up quickly and pulls her with him. He takes her face between his hands and kisses her tenderly.

"I will love you forever, you know."

Yes, you will. It must have been hell when you met me again.

With slightly shaking fingers Sirius places the white gold ring on her left ring finger. Hermione places her hand over his heart and thinks she has never appreciated any part of her own body as much as she does now. Her slim fingers with the slightly too large ring against Sirius creased shirt, which is unbuttoned and allows her thumb to touch his skin.

"Thank you," she whispers.

"No, thank you," he whispers back and nuzzles the side of her neck.

"Can you give my Time Turner?" she asks and he flinches as if she'd hit him.

"The chain," she elaborates. "I can't wear the ring on my finger, but I can wear it on the chain to the Time Turner."

Sirius looks deeply into her eyes before he nods.

"I've hidden it. Close your eyes."

Hermione sighs impatiently.

"I just want the chain, you can keep the Time Turner. You can break it, if you want to. I will never use it again."

Sirius wriggles the ring off her finger and takes up his wand. With very small movements he charms an engraving into the ring, on the outside of it.

"I will love you forever; time is nothing," he spells out and puts the ring down.

Then he walks into the bedroom and comes back seconds later with the miniscule hourglass in its gold setting. With his wand he casts a few charms to open the chain and separate it from the Time Turner itself. He threads the ring onto the golden chain and closes it seamlessly. He holds it up before Hermione and she lets him place it around her neck. The chain magically shrinks to a length that keeps the ring out of sight under her summer top.

"And this?" He holds up the Time Turner.

Hermione shrugs.

"Whatever you like. Crush it, destroy it with magic, keep it."

A knock on the door interrupts the moment and Sirius just drops the Time Turner into the wooden box.

"Later," he says. "Get the door, will you?"

When Hermione crosses the floor she sees, out of the corner of her eye, that Sirius puts the box between some books on one of the shelves. She wishes she hadn't seen that. Or that he'd smashed the Time Turner with the heel of his boot. She would have liked to have fewer options, less responsibility, and absolutely no way away from where she is in time and place this minute.

When she opens the door Lily stands smiling on the doorstep. She holds a pick-nick basket and wants them to come down to the river. An afternoon of doing absolutely nothing other than what strikes their fancy.

"Just lead the way, we're right behind you," Sirius says when he closes the door behind them.

Only three chapters left of the story. All done. Are you interested?

Kia