The sound of a meow greeted Harry as he let himself into Hermione's home, the permanently squished face of Crookshanks looked up at him, the cats' yellow eyes moodily glaring at him from where the large cat sat on Hermione's royal blue sofa.
"Hiya Crooks, I'm sorry with everything going on I forgot about you," he told the elderly half-Kneazle, as he reached down, and tickled the ginger feline between his twitching ears. This action did nothing to comfort the cat and Harry was treated to Crookshanks hissing at him and swiping one of his large, padded paws towards Harry's hand, his claws extended to cause damage to Harry, thankfully he drew his hand back quickly enough to avoid injury.
"I bet your hungry," he told the beast quietly, not holding the cats' actions against him, he begun to make his way through to the small kitchen that adjoined the small comfortable living room of Hermione's quaint cottage. Crookshanks followed him at his own pace, his large bottlebrush tail swinging behind him.
"Meow," the cat let out a loud yowl, his eyes following Harry impatiently as Harry opened the cupboard, he knew Hermione kept all of Crookshanks' food in, he pulled out a small tin of chicken flavoured cat food and a bag of duck flavoured cat biscuits, setting them down on the marble worktop he walked over to the small sage-green mat in the corner of the kitchen, and the two white ceramic bowls that sat atop of it.
"Your mummy's not well so I'm going to have to look after you until she can come home," he told the cat as he carried the bowls across to the large white country sink and begun washing them. Harry then started on refilling Crooks bowls. In the first bowl he used a baby spoon to mash up the tinned food and sprinkled a handful of biscuits across the top of the mushed chicken, the way Hermione so often did, while in the second he filled it with fresh cold water from the kitchens tap. Crookshanks was brushing around his legs, in a figure of eight motion and Harry stepped over the cat as he carried the bowls back over to the sage-green mat.
"Here you go boy, you eat up, I need to find something to help Hermione," he told the cat as he set two bowls down atop of the mat, one filled with fresh water and the other holding a combination of wet cat food and dried biscuits, Crookshanks let out a chirp in thanks and began to eat the food ravenously, paying Harry no more attention, his focus solely on the food in the ceramic bowl he was eating from.
Hermione's beast now fed; Harry began searching for Hermione's journal. It felt wrong to be going through Hermione's belongings, but he justified his actions with the knowledge that he'd hopefully find the means to help Hermione and Sirius. The rudimentary treatments the healers had so far used to rouse the pair had been unsuccessful, Harry knew they needed a better understanding of how the pair had ended in their current state if they were to have any chance at curing them.
"Accio Hermione's Journal," he called, waving his wand, as he'd expected no journal came flying towards him, the journal likely warded against such summoning and perhaps too against snooping friends. Harry sighed and begun searching first among the many bookshelves piled high with books and manuscripts that covered the walls of his best friend's home. Hermione certainly read too much; he decided as he looked through what must be thousands of books crammed into every available gap on the living rooms many bookshelves.
"Meow," Crookshanks sounded.
"I don't suppose you know where your mum keeps her journal, he questioned the cat.
"Meow," the cat blinked his yellow eyes up at him slowly and turned away from Harry, the cat took three steps before glancing back over his shoulder, "Meow," the cat said again, and Harry got the sense that Crookshanks wanted him to follow him.
"I must be going crazy," he mumbled to himself as he followed the cat out of the living room to Hermione's small hallway and up the narrow wooden staircase that led to a tiny landing with three wooden doors: one to a bathroom, the next to the house's spare bedroom and the third to Hermione's room. Crookshanks let out another Meow and began pawing at the third door.
"It's in Mione's bedroom is it," he asked the cat, reaching out he used the brass handle to open the door, pushing it inwards as he stepped across the threshold into the room, he had entered only a handful of times during the five years Hermione had lived in the property. Three of the walls in the room were decorated in a pale blue while the fourth wall served as a feature wall with flowered wallpaper, this was the wall Hermione's bed leant against, Crookshanks jumping up onto it, settling himself onto the floral bedspread with a contented purr.
"Did you lead me up here just so I could let you into Hermione's room," he asked the cat quietly," Crookshanks responded with a meow, his yellow knowing eyes fixed on a set of wooden drawers in the room.
"Is Hermione's journal, in there," he asked the cat, moving to inspect the drawers, they were made of oak and atop of them was a small vase of wildflowers. The unit consisted of five different drawers, two small ones on the top level and three larger ones below. Taking a breath, Harry pulled open the left top drawer and peered inside, in it there were skimpy pieces of lace, satin and cotton, atop of which sat a thick highly realistic vibrator and a bottle of strawberry flavoured lube, Harry hurriedly closed the drawer and opened the right one, inside were neat rows of folded socks but no Journal. The first of the large drawers held Hermione's pyjamas, Harry had been about to close the drawer and move onto the next but noticed the smallest hint of the same Navy Blue he knew Hermione's journal to be, pushing aside her pyjamas he pulled the journal out, receiving a slight zap of warning from the protected book.
"Meow," the cat yowled at him, Harry carried the journal over to the bed and sat down beside Crookshanks, patting the cat lightly on his fury head.
"Thanks boy," he spoke to the cat before raising his wand to the journal to see what protection Hermione had embedded into her diary, thankfully, nothing too difficult to break through, only a zapping hex, anti-summoning and password protection charm were present on the book.
"What's your Mummy's password," he asked the cat, Crookshanks blinked sleepily at him, settling his head on his paws.
"Crookshanks," Harry spoke, tapping the journal with his wand, the journal glowed red and zapped his fingers again, "not your name then," Harry commented, shaking his hand of the tingling sensation in his fingers.
"Hogwarts A History," was his next guess, knowing it was Hermione's favourite book, that too was not the password and Harry received a cautionary zap. Harry's next twelve guesses were wrong too and the force of the zap increased with each additional guess. Hermione had not set the password to be any of her favourite authors, foods, drinks or places and Harry was getting rather sick of been zapped by the spell in place on the book.
"What is the password, Mr Snuggle-Muffin," he asked, using one of the many silly, babylike made up nicknames he'd heard Hermione call the cat over the years, his wand still in hand, Harry was surprised to see the Journal glow green, the once sealed cover flipping open to reveal the first page and neat familiar penmanship, spelling out his best Friends name.
"Let's find out what your Mummy was up too, Mr Snuggle-Muffin," he said cautiously turning pages, he began to skim the pages of his friend's journal, that was immaculately written detailing Hermione's daily experiences. Hermione wrote about every aspect of her day, innate things like what she ate, what she drank, little details about popping to the shops or people watching over her morning coffee at the Witches Brew, a coffee shop she frequented in Diagon Alley. Harry quickly realised that his friend had cast an undetectable extension charm on the book, it looked remarkably normal and small from the outside but, where a normal journal may only have a hundred or so pages, Hermione's had many thousands all filled out with lines of neatly joined up small writing. Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to sooth an ache within his head as he focused on skimming the text for relevant information.
"Mione writes everything," he told the now sleeping cat, taking note of the red stars that denoted her period each month and the detailed notes she wrote regarding work meetings and friendship outings. He was certain it would take a while to find information relevant to the case, Harry realised he needed help in this. Standing tiredly he summoned Crookshanks' wicker basket and lifted the cat into it, Crookshanks grumbled but did not wake up fully. Harry made his way to the kitchen and grabbed a selection of the cat's food and treats before washing up the cat's bowls and packing them too.
"You'll have to come home with me Crooksie, hopefully you and Hermione will both be home soon," he told the cat, as he extinguished Hermione's lights and stepped into Hermione's tiny fireplace to floo to his own home, with a pinch of floo powder and a call of his address he found himself and the now yowling cat swirling through fireplaces until he was deposited in the living room of Grimmould Place, the house fresh, vibrant and modernly renovated was homely and lived in, nothing at all like the house had been when it had been the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix a decade before.
"Dada," James called, stumbling towards him on wobbly legs, his oldest child was almost three and had only just begun toddling around.
"Hiya Jamie," he grinned leaning down to pull the tot into his arms.
"Love why do you have Crookshanks," Ginny asked, looking up Harry could see that his wife was sat on the sofa, baby Albus suckling from her exposed breast. With a grimace, Harry realised he had yet to tell Ginny about what had happened to Hermione. The previous day, Ginny had already been asleep when he got home from the hospital and then they had been up with screaming and unwell children throughout the night. When he'd left for work that morning, Ginny, and the boys had all finally gotten back to sleep and Harry hadn't told his wife about Hermione been in the hospital.
"Hermione's in St Mungo's," he told her quietly as he opened the basket and allowed Crookshanks out of it, Crookshanks gave him a disdainful look and jumped up onto a plaid wingback chair where he begun to groom himself.
"What happened," Ginny asked worriedly.
"That's what I'm trying to find out," he whispered quietly as he sat down beside her and began explaining to her everything he knew so far.
"I'll take the boys to the Burrow and then we can split the journal between us," Ginny suggested when he had told her everything, Harry found himself nodding in agreement, as he massaged his temples, two heads would be better than one.
"You can't tell your parents Gin," he told her seriously, while he trusted his parents in laws, he knew that Molly would likely tell the entire family and gather everyone to offer their assistance. The more who knew of it, the more likely the information of Sirius' return and Hermione's pregnancy would be leaked to the general public. If Hermione didn't know she was pregnant, he didn't want the whole of Wizarding London to know before she did. There was no guarantee she'd want to keep the baby and it was her choice how much the world knew of her private life.
"I know," she nodded, "get some rest Harry and we will sort this out together when I get back", she told him leaning down she kissed his forehead sweetly and Harry let his eyes close for a moment. That made it twice today that he'd been told to get some rest, Harry decided to heed this advice and settled himself down on the sofa for a short nap while Ginny packed up their children and took them for a visit at their grandparent's home, he'd be no help to Hermione and his godfather if he was sleep deprived. The last thing he was aware of was a warm purring weight settling on his chest, the comforting rumble of Crookshanks making him sleepy enough to allow unconscious ness to claim him, his restless worried thoughts easing into sweet dreams.