Chapter 2. a Time to be Found
She does her research, of course. The dream…vision…hallucination… feels so real, she swears that she can still feel the roll of the contractions beneath her fingertips, can still smell the sweat as Walburga Black struggled to breathe deeply and remain calm. She looks through St Mungo's archives for any documentation of Sirius's birth and found none among the haphazardly filed records. Not a single evidence that Walburga Black ever had her first child (or any other child) at St. Mungo's.
She tells no one of the experience. The last thing she needs is an inquiry on her fitness as a healer. She's had enough mandatory therapy to last her a lifetime, thank you very much. While her research on the Blacks and St. Mungo's lead her nowhere, a niggling doubt stubbornly remains in the back of her mind.
Hermione is not one for flights of fancy and imagining herself as the savior of a baby Sirius Black seems inconceivable even for her.
She tries to recount the day as much as she can, starting from when she wakes up to her time at St Mungo's. She visits Neville and his parents at their ward, and goes to her own only to encounter Sirius and eventually Harry. There's nothing that hints at anything strange.
She considers asking Sirius himself at one point. But talking to Sirius about anything related to his mother leads to him brooding more than he usually does already. What's more, she has a sneaking suspicion that he's been avoiding her recently. As reclusive as he's become, he still makes every effort to visit Harry in Grimmauld despite hating the place. Given that Hermione lives in Grimmauld, it seems unlikely that his last several visits happen to coincide during her absence.
She does finally ask Harry if she's offended the man somehow. But Harry adamantly denies it, citing perhaps that his godfather was only embarrassed at being falling down drunk in front of the Brightest Witch of their Age.
Which is, of course, ridiculous. Sirius Black doesn't have an embarrassed bone in his entire body. The man, as much as she teases him about his age, is fit and he knows it.
She has run out of viable ideas to the point that she thinks Occam's proverbial razor may be best in this situation. Unfortunately, the simplest reason is…unsatisfying.
But given her lack of options, she is hard pressed to keep going. Luckily, her work and her friends keep her occupied. And as time passes, the incident is shoved at the back burner and she continues in her daily routine.
The second time it happens, several months later, she is walking down Diagon Alley when a sudden headache makes her pause in front of the former Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and brace herself against the glass window. She closes her eyes against the sudden brightness and feels a chill throughout her whole body.
Both the headache and the chill left within what felt like seconds, and she found herself feeling back to normal, if not a bit perplexed. She slowly stood up away from the window and shook her head to clear it.
The window looked…different. It was most assuredly not the window from Fortescue's and the street she was in was looking decidedly less friendly.
A strange sense of deja vu assailed her and her eyes narrowed to take in her environment. It was dark now and the streets were deserted.
Had she…lost more time? Had she apparated unknowingly somewhere else during her headache?
A child's scream around the corner had her running towards it. The fact that it must be quite late at night for the streets of Diagon Alley to be quite so deserted coupled with the sound of a child in distress had Hermione'a heart jumping in an unsteady rhythm as she sought the origin of the sound.
Wand ready, she turned around a corner just in time to cast a Protego over a small boy who would have been a recipient of several hexes from a couple of drunken wizards staggering out of a building. Her eyes scanned the area quickly, noting the jagged metal shards protruding from the corner that the little boy would have fallen in had it not been for her intervention.
"What do you think you're doing?" she said as loudly as she could in hopes of calling attention to the situation and ensuring that the men knew that there would be witnesses to their act. She runs toward the boy and stands between him and the drunkards.
"None of your business, witch," one of them slurred. "We're just showing that little shit some manners!"
"Yeah!" his equally inebriated compatriot interjected. "Little shit needs a lesson!"
She hated mean drunks. Reason seemed to cease to exist for them and she's often left with hexes to deal with them.
"And you've decided to do this with hexes and curses?!" she asks rhetorically, her tone disdainful. "Two grown wizards against a little boy? My, how brave we are."
She moved with the confidence of a soldier, years of fighting and hiding during the war honing her awareness of her surroundings. She went about ensuring that the little boy was well and truly protected by her body and hidden against the drunkards. They were a nuisance at best, and an aggravation at worst. With a quick flick of her wand and Harry's favorite spell, she disarmed them completely. A silent Petrificus Totalus rendered them useless and she quickly led the little boy away from the alley.
"Where are you parents?" she asked him gently, finally taking the time to get a good look at him.
He looked quite…familiar.
The wavy dark curls that framed his face were adorable. He was giving her a look of confusion as his eyes darted between her and the alley they just left.
"I didn't need any help," he said in a shaky voice, a bit of bravado inserted for good measure.
"Of course not," she assured him, her eyes twinkling. He put up a brave front, but she could see the slight tremble of his lower lip. "I just happened to be there and thought it unfair that there were two of them and only one of you so I thought I'd lend a hand to make it more fair." She gave him a serious look. "I don't like bullies," she whispered conspiratorially.
The beginnings of a smile quirked around his mouth and his gray eyes quickly took on a mischievous glint. "You really gave them a what for," he said softly, his shoulders losing the stiffness he held onto.
"They deserved it," she winked. "Now where are your parents?" she asked. "They must be so worried about you."
She saw his shoulders stiffen back up.
"I…I don't know," he said with a tremulous voice. "They were mad at me so I ran." He took a steadying breath. "And then they were gone."
Sympathy flooded her being at his obvious dismay. "Well we can't have that," she declared. "Why don't we go find them together then," she suggested.
At his worried look, she added, "I'll be with you until we do."
That seemed to reassure him. Relief painted his features at the thought of not being alone. "Yes!" he agreed excitedly. "You'll help me find them and my brother!?"
"Of course," she assured him, giving her best smile. "Why don't you give me your name and I can certainly help you find your family."
"It's Black," he said with a child's confidence of his name's importance.
What the fuck?
"Sirius Black of the Noble and most Ancient House of Black," he continued. "What's your name?"
"Sirius!" a voice screeched from behind her.
"Sirius!" a male this time.
"Sirius!" a child's voice.
She turned her head just when the familiar headache and light greeted her.
The sound of his name was the last thing she remembered before opening her eyes to see the various looks of concern as people gathered around her in front of Fortescue's.
She vanished!
Out of thin air!
Not like an apparition either. There was some sort of light that surrounded her, enveloped her, and then she was gone.
"Sirius Orion Black III!" his mother's shout did not bode well for him.
He felt his baby brother's body slam into him as Regulus's tiny arms wrapped around him and squeezed as hard as his little frame would let him.
"Sirius!" he sobbed. "We lost you!"
"There's riffraff everywhere," his mother declared. "Why, we just passed by a couple of troublemakers on the way here!"
"At least the aurora have made themselves useful and arrested them," his father sniffed as he looked down on Sirius from his great height. "And just where were you, young man?"
"That's right!" his mother chimes in. "What were you thinking darting away like that! We are going to have words when we get home. I'm going to have Kreacher—"
Sirius tuned her out and looked at his brother, who continued to embrace him even tighter. "I'm happy we found you," he said in a small voice. "It was sad without you."
Sirius buried his face in his brother's hair. "I'd be sad without you too, little one." He brightened. "Guess what I saw?"
Regulus looked up at him.
A ghost," Sirius informed him. "She saved me!"
His brother's eyes widened in awe as Sirius proceeded to tell him a story of his daring adventure.