Two pairs of black boots hit the doorstep with more force than intended. "That was quite possibly the worst sidelong you've ever attempted, Harry Potter." A lilting voice teased.
"'Mione, like you're much better. I'm mint at apparating." Harry released his grip on Hermione's arm as he opened the door to number 12 Grimmauld place.
"Unlike you, I've had practice. My apparition is by the book, it's flawless." Hermione brushed non-existing dust off her shoulder. "You could do so well if you tried just marginally harder, Harry."
The pair kicked off their shoes in the coatroom and continued their way bickering into the house that had taken years to become a proper home. There wasn't a fleck of dust on any of the shelves in the house, most of the furniture had either been repaired or replaced, and the gloomy wallpaper had been stripped and the walls painted in light, airy colors.
"Ginny, we're home!" Harry called up the stairs as he began his ascent.
"I'll just put the groceries away." Hermione mumbled as she distractedly walked through the halls to the kitchen. "Kreacher?" She summoned the ancient elf.
"Yes, Miss." He appeared with a violent pop and a half-hearted glare. Hermione suspected he was growing at least a tad fonder of her due to the gradual but recent lack of him mentioning her blood status or generally disrespecting her. A distant telltale thunk of a door thrown open somewhere in the townhouse could be heard but Hermione gave it no mind.
"May you please put these away?" Hermione set the paper bags down on the island countertop. She had learned not to do too many chores around the house herself or Kreacher would have a particularly foul attitude for a day or two. He was happy to be made busy and Hermione was too afraid of him punishing himself in his frail state to even attempt to push her old S.P.E.W. agenda on him anymore.
"'Course." He grumbled and set to work.
A peculiar noise came from the front of the house, Hermione heard the voices of her housemates and rushed to the foyer where an unknown man scampered out the front door looking unkempt and Ginny sobbed as the house was ejecting her and her belongings. The master of the house had made it clear she was no longer welcome and magic was ensuring his wishes were carried out to the T.
"I didn't mean it. He meant nothing to me! Harry!" She gasped for air through her sobs as the doors shut behind her.
"What happened?" Hermione looked at her friend, who stared at the door as tears silently trekked down his face. "Harry?"
"She had another man. In our bed." His eyes were glassy. "I think it had been going on for a while. I should have known."
"Oh, Harry." Hermione wrapped her arms around her best friend. "It'll be alright. I suppose it just wasn't meant to be."
With that statement, Harry choked back a sob before he was overcome by tears. Hermione gently guided him to the main sitting room and they sat on a sofa. Easing my glasses off of his forehead where his hands had displaced them as he rubbed at his eyes. Hermione held Harry until he inevitably cried himself to sleep, head in her lap. Unable to fall asleep herself, Hermione ran her fingers through Harry's raucous black hair, fingernails scraping lightly against his scalp until she dozed off quite some time later.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
When she woke up, a tempus charm told Hermione it was just past 4 in the morning. She slowly and carefully slid away from Harry's prostrate form. Her climb up all the stories hidden in Grimmauld place was only worth it once she reached the owlery. Well, it had once been an owlery, when the house of Black had thrived and the home had been full of witches and wizards, each with their own familiar. Now the room, which took up most of the functional attic of the house, only housed three owls (soon to be two). Ginny's owl, Rhea, would go to find her new abode soon enough. Harry and Hermione each had their own owls, they'd bought them together after the war, two sisters, Pakhet and Proserpine. They were northern white-faced owls and Hermione had been smitten with them as soon as she laid eyes on them, so she got both herself and Harry familiars, even though she already had Crookshanks.
"Hello, loves." She cooed as she approached the well-stocked desk that sat near the owls' perches. He penned a note to excuse Harry from work for the day using sickness as an excuse before handing it to her own owl, Pakhet. "Please deliver this to Kingsley," She intoned.
Watching the pretty bird fly away into the early morning sky suddenly reminded Hermione that she'd left Harry alone, and should he wake, she didn't want him to assume she'd abandoned him for anything else when he needed her. She hurried downstairs on nimble feet, content to find Harry still in the thick of sleep on the large couch. She nudged him aside just a little in order to crawl onto the couch beside him, she was still tired and her neck was sore from having slept sitting up with nothing bracing her head.
The next time Hermione woke up it was because Harry was trying to climb over her and off the couch.
"Mornin'" She grunted, covering her eyes from the meager light that came in from the closest window.
"Mornin'" Harry rubbed at his eyes as he left the room, returning a few minutes later looking slightly more awake than he had when he'd left.
"I have to use the loo..." Hermione groaned. "But I don't want to get up."
"I don't want to start the day." Harry fell back into his place on the couch, lodged between the back of the couch and his friend.
"Take your time, I wrote Kings to tell him you're ill." Hermione rolled off the couch and intentionally onto the floor in a heap. Which left her no choice but to get up, thus motivating her to get to the restroom.
"Thanks." Harry mumbled into his forearm as he lay prone on his stomach.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Let's do something today." Harry said once Hermione had returned.
"It's only," she paused to cast a tempus, "half past 8, let's have breakfast first."
"I'll cook." Harry volunteered.
"Great." Hermione led the way to the dark kitchen before waving her hand and letting light fill the room.
"Show off," Harry watched her nod as she took a seat at the kitchen table before he moved to start frying up some kippers. "You make toast," Harry decided.
He made breakfast quickly and received great praise for it as Hermione practically inhaled her meal.
"Alright, what's on the agenda?" Hermione asked as she collected the dirty dishes and had them washed in the sink and set in the drying rack with another wave of her hand and a snap of her fingers.
"Well, we could go through Sirius' room and pack it up. I've been meaning to do that- I think I'm ready. Can you believe it's been 4 years since he…" Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Or we could go out. Whatever you want to do."
"I want to do what you want to do, Harry." Hermione sat down again, reaching across the table to grasp Harry's hand. "If only you ask."
He paused before giving her hand a brief squeeze back, "I- I think I knew. On some level. Things with Gin haven't been right in months. I'm upset, but I think I knew it was over a long time ago." He confessed. Not knowing what else to do, Hermione squeezed his hand comfortingly before letting it go.
"Let's go explore. We can make it fun." Hermione started the walk, knowing Harry would follow. "Will we be looking for anything in particular or are we just being nosy?"
"Just poking around." Harry shrugged noncommittally, which Hermione felt implied he was hiding something, but she decided not to pry for now.
/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\\/\\/\/\/\/\
They ended up finding several things including a tie that at first glance was undeniably a slytherin one, however once being fastened by Harry around Hermione's neck playfully, the colors changed to red and gold. "A trick tie." Hermione inspected the fabric as if she would be able to uncover the spellwork used. "I wonder which one of the marauders designed it." She pondered aloud.
A beater's bat rolled out from under the bed when Harry threw himself onto the mattress after about an hour of nosing around his godfather's room. Though there was a signature on the wooden bat, neither Harry nor Hermione could decipher the name scrawled there, so they abandoned it in search of more interesting discoveries.
Hermione found a quidditch robe set along with the jersey which read "POTTER" in big, bold lettering. "Wasn't your father chaser, Harry? I wonder when Sirius took his robes." She mumbled conversationally as she handed the clothes to the man sitting on the bed.
"Yes. He was." Harry murmured back.
As they flipped through some leather bound notebooks of Sirius' from his Hogwarts years, Hermione laid on the bed, lounging beside Harry as she read through some of Sirius' school notes as well as critiquing some of his drawings he'd done in the margins.
"I wish we could have saved him somehow." Hermione sighed after setting the book down, watching Harry continue to flip through a different book.
"I wish we could have saved everyone." Harry said absentmindedly.
"Well. Yeah there is that." Hermione sighed once more. "Let's do something else. It's still morning, the day is still young."
"Fine." Harry rolled out of bed, muttering a few spells under his breath as he waved his hand and everything returned to where they'd found it.
"Maybe…" Hermione froze in the process of getting up. "Maybe I could. Maybe we could save them all. If only I had more time."
"Hermione? What are you saying?" Harry stared at her as she seemed to have forgotten he was even there.
"Harry! We just need more time! Much more time!" She bolted from the room and down the stairs, dragging Harry behind her by the wrist."Let's go to the library!"
"I don't understand!" He tried to pull her back to get an explanation but she was an unrelenting force and soon enough they were in the Black family library and she was energetically scanning the shelves, plucking a book every few moments without pause.
"Time magic." She set a stack of books on a mahogany desk by a large window that appeared to be nailed shut quite securely.
"Hermione, that's extremely dangerous, and illegal." Harry reminded her with no real judgment or condemnation in his tone.
"That's never stopped us before!" She looked up with a spark in her dark, warm eyes, "You don't need to come along, mind you. But if I go, at -" at that moment the wards alerted the two residents of Grimmauld place of a visitor at the door.
"We'll talk about it later." Harry said as he somberly approached the door. Both Harry and Hermione fully expected to find Ginny at the door and though neither particularly wanted to see her they answered.
They were pleasantly surprised to find that they'd anticipated the wrong Weasley when Ron stepped through the threshold.
"Ron!" Hermione greeted him enthusiastically, hugging him briefly. "What brings you by? How's Pansy? You never come see us anymore!" The energy from her newfound idea hadn't been fully shed yet.
"Hey 'Mione. All's well, Pans is fine." Ron looked from Hermione to Harry apologetically. "I heard about Ginny. I'm sorry mate, I don't know what was going through her thick skull."
"I'll live." Harry's lopsided grin was self-depreciating but it was surely better than more tears, in Hermione's opinion. A step in the right direction, if you will.
"Stay for lunch." Hermione offered, knowing Kreacher was likely already preparing something.
"'Lright." Ron shed his coat and shoes before following Harry and Hermione to their sitting room, he would never deny a free meal.
"Want a butterbeer?" Harry offered, walking to the cabinet he kept well stocked in the corner of that particular room.
"Firewhiskey." Ron requested, at which Harry nodded.
"Actually, I'll give you two some privacy. I'll just be up in the library then." Hermione excused herself, she knew an impending man-to-man conversation when she saw the signs and she wanted nothing to do with it. Instead, her mind was speeding through theories and arithmancy equations as she climbed the steps.
She could potentially save people and help everyone, she couldn't let the chance go.