His Past, Her Future {Book One}

Chapter 8. Living With Ghosts

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Hermione had felt like she had surely lived through the longest day of her life. It seemed an age ago that she had woken in her bed at Grimmauld Place and had been worried about having slept in. Hence it was how she found her self eternally grateful for the lush red comforter of the Gryffindor dorms as she snuggled into her bed, retiring early that night.

Although Madame Pomfrey had supplied her with a copious amount of potions in her short stay in the hospital wing her stomach pains had returned quite persistently throughout dinner and she had felt herself unable to stomach anything more than a glass of pumpkin juice. Unfortunately her lack of occupation throughout the feast had seemed to have been viewed as an open invitation to her housemates to give her a full out questioning of her life pre-Hogwarts. She really couldn't blame them for their interest in 'the new girl', but it was extremely irritating to her own cover to be repeatedly questioned on a fabricated existence.

In hindsight she thought it quite lucky that she had found herself sitting with marauders as their questions where mostly superficial and trivial and hence could be answered with a lot more truth. After all what harm would be in James Potter knowing her favourite wizarding candy?

For the other more complicated questions Dumbledore and herself had already come up with a somewhat reliable background story. After the feast, and during his normal welcoming speech, he had introduced her to the school assembly as niece of his. She had already relayed this information to her questioning Gryffindors and had proceeded to tell them that she had previously been home-schooled but her Uncle (i.e. Dumbledore) had convinced her parents that he thought it best for her to complete her NEWT education at Hogwarts.

The details had mostly been left with Hermione, with the exception of Dumbledore's input that her parents' names were Odette and Philippe and she grew up in Oxford. Hermione assumed that these must be the real names of his relatives; however as for details, she was determined to give as little as possible without appearing rude or suspicious. The last thing she wanted was to draw unnecessary attention to herself.

She had gotten through her first night and was quite pleased at that, however it was greatly overshadowed by the fact that she didn't know how many more nights she was going to have to 'get through'. It was like one down and... well possibly forever to go.

Though, the worst thing about it was that she knew she wouldn't be able to be friends with the marauders... she couldn't.

It would be too hard.

It would be too hard not to let something slip, she knew them so well (whether directly or not).

But mostly, it would be too hard on herself.

It had been so wonderful to see Sirius again.

Too wonderful.

She knew she wouldn't be able to last if she was to make friends with him again, get to know him again...only to lose him...again.

She had become close with Harry's godfather the last few years before his death; especially during her stay at Grimmauld Place, when Molly Weasley had tried to recruit them all as housemaids. One day when they had been scheduled to clean a particularly nasty room, they coincidently chose the same hiding spot. And well as Sirius had said 'after you share a few hours in a cloak closet with someone you're never the same'.

That made her laugh.

They hadn't meant to be in there so long but Hermione in her haste had jumped into the closet without her wand and landing on something soft, hadn't thought much about the lock clicking into place.

The soft thing had turned out to be a disgruntled Sirius Black, who likewise was wandless.

The result being they had been stuck in the closet for a little over three hours, until someone was kind enough to rescue them.

They dared not to call out and risk being scolded and then employed once again by Molly.

It was three hours later that Remus had opened the cupboard to put away his cloak and the two had fallen out on top of him.

Needless to say he wasn't pleased.

Which was surprising to Hermione, despite the being toppled upon factor, he usually found his best friends antics endearing and reminiscent of their 'olden days'.

Hermione had felt his disappointment and anger towards her too, until Sirius pulled him away to presumably calm him down.

But the warm memory of Sirius was quickly turning to ice.

She wouldn't hide in closets with Sirius again. She couldn't.

Because he was dead.

James and Lily too.

She was living in a castle full of ghosts.

Dumbledore had always told Harry not to dwell on death, that it would consume you if you let it.

But how could she not. She was living with death. All the people here were dead... most of them anyway.

Her heart clenched and she felt the sting of her eyes that told her they were filling with water.

She buried her face downward into her pillow her mass of curls and the soft pillow covering her senses and blocking out the world of death around her.

Sirius isn't alive.

James isn't alive! Lily is dead! They are all dead! Dumbledore isn't here! He can't help you! No-one can because they are all dead. No-one will see them smile again. No-one will know how handsome Remus once was. How much they all laughed...

The words reverberated around her head like they were trapped in a small cave being bounced around off the walls by a strong wind only to bounce right back, over and over again.

"Hermione, are you ok?" a worried voice broke through her thoughts.

The wind stopped and so did the words.

As discreetly as she could she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and turned to face the girl who was standing by her bed.

It was Emily. A sixth year girl who she was sharing the dorm with, along with Lily.

"Yeah, thanks Emily. Just really tired, that's all"

The girl smiled and nodded understandingly. "Well if you change your mind, Sirius has smuggled in some Firewhisky and last thing I heard they were trying to talk Lily into a game of strip-chess." Emily rolled her eyes. "So anyway, if you change your mind..."

"Thanks. Maybe next time though?"

"Sure!" she said bounding towards the door, a grin on her face. It wouldn't take a genius to know she was excited about the prospect of a naked Black.

"Sweet Dreams My."

Hermione smiled as she got onto her knees to draw the curtains around her bed closed.

She couldn't be friends with the marauders because of the risk of letting something slip, but that didn't mean she couldn't make new friends; right?

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