A/N: Welcome to my first attempt at writing Fanfiction. i have been reading fanfics for years but never felt the need to write my own until now. the idea for this story gripped me from the beginning and it has not let me go since. so here we are.

So far i have written upto chapter 12, i am about 15,000 words in and the story is really only at the beginning still, so expect a relatively slow burn.

There will be an eventual relationship between Hermione and Sirius, and there will be a pretty sizeable age gap too, so if that is not your thing, or it bothers you...

Disclaimer: i do not own any of the characters, i just make them dance to my tune.

thats all from me. thanks for joining me on this ride. see you at the bottom :)

Chapter one

20th December 2004

Hermione Granger sat huddled on the cold stone floor of the restricted section, in the library, in the dark with her lit wand between her teeth, flipping through the large book she had found. She briefly wondered to herself what she was doing there, at 2 in the morning, in the dark, alone, on a Friday night.

'I know someone's there, I can see the light, should 'ave been more careful, you're in for it now' came the wheezing voice of Filch through the stacks of bookshelves that surrounded her.

His Sudden voice didn't strike the same fear as it did in her youth, she was a professor now she could do what she wanted.

Predictably the cat was the first one round the corner, a smug expression on its face if that was possible, fleetingly Hermione wondered how the bloody cat was still alive, it was so old, but she simply looked up and then carried on with her search.

'Ah ha' Filch said with gusto

Hermione took the wand from between her teeth and answered lazily 'can I help you?'

'Oh sorry Professor Granger, I thought you were a student' Filch looked put out that he had clearly been tricked into getting his hopes up

'Well as you can see I am not, so if there's nothing else I really should be getting on, goodnight' she stood up, put the book under her arm and marched for the exit, lit wand in hand guiding the way as she strode past the rumpled caretaker.

As she made her way back to her quarters, through the deserted corridors of Hogwarts, she remembered fondly, sneaking through the same corridors under Harry's cloak, and suddenly she missed her friend.

Arriving at her room, she touched her wand to a particular section of the wall and her door appeared. She walked through closing the door behind her and placing the book on top of a stack of books on the coffee table she had in the corner by her armchair. The stack wobbled ominously but the weight of the book seemed to calm the wobble and it stilled. Sure that it was not going to topple she lit the fireplace to warm the room and got back into bed.

She felt foolish for letting the dream she had had disturb her to the point of finding the book she had dreamt about in the library, but she had, and she found the book. She could look through it tomorrow.

Perhaps part of the nostalgia she had felt in the corridors was because she was alone at Hogwarts during the Christmas holidays, she was alone all the time. A wave of melancholy swept though her and she closed her eyes.

She would think about it in the morning.

27th December 2004

As it happened, she didn't think about it in the morning, or all of the next day, in fact she didn't think about her dream and her impromptu jaunt around the castle in the wee hours, until a week later when she accidentally knocked the pile of books off of her coffee table.

Christmas had come and gone with little fanfare. She had a letter from Neville wishing her a happy Christmas and encouraging her to stop by sometime before lessons recommenced if she wanted to, get out of Hogwarts for a while, but that he would see her next term if not. She responded returning the sentiment but stating she had a lot to catch up on during the holidays so she would see him next year. He knew she would not come, but he always offered anyway. He was a good friend.

The stack of books fell to the floor with a loud thud, she had known that would happen at some point. She had a bad habit of just piling up the books she had recently read, rather than putting them away, it was normally when they fell over that she knew it was time to tidy them back into her bookcase.

She began picking up the books that had fallen, silently estimating that it must have been a few weeks since she had had her last cleaning spree and decided that she needed to have another.

'Accio' she held her had out as her wand flew from it's place on her bedside table, straight into her open palm.

With a wave of her wand the books lifted into the air and began to float gently along to the bookcase on the other side of the room. All except the book she had taken from the restricted section of the library. It floated up from the floor like the rest of the books that had fallen, but as soon as it was high enough off the ground, it slammed down onto the top of the coffee table with an almighty thud.

Hermione was so shocked by the sudden noise, her momentary lapse in concentration caused all of the other books to drop to the floor. Gathering her wits once more, she waved her wand again and the books, which were now in a neat line on the floor leading to her book shelves, floated into the air and continued on with their journey. The book from the library however, remained unmoved on the table.

Curious.

When the last of the books was in the proper place, she aimed her wand directly at the large tome on the table, nothing happened, she had long since mastered the art of wordless, and wandless magic for that matter, but nothing happened.

'Accio book' she said, nothing happened

"Wingardium leviosa" nothing happened, she didn't understand what was going on, it was like magic didn't affect the book. But that couldn't be right, could it? It lifted from the floor when she first began tidying up. So what was going on.

How can a book choose when to be affected by magic and when not to?

She walked cautiously over to the large book that had caused such a stir, and sat down in her armchair. She laid her wand on the table and picked up the book, bringing it into her lap as she sat back.

There was nothing particularly special or noteworthy about the book, it was leather bound, it was large, it was old. It didn't seem to have anything she found of particular interest during her cursory search in the library last week. If she hadn't had a dream about the book she doubted she would have ever found the need to even look at it.

She had had a dream about the book.

She had had a dream about a book that she had never seen before, and found it in the exact place she had seen in it to be her dream.

Hermione tried for a moment to remember the details of the dream, it was like trying to hold sand in her fist, the details would not more she concentrated, the more they seemed to slip away The only thing she remembered with any kind of clarity was that she had dreamt that she went to find this book in the restricted section of the library, that there was a spell she needed but she couldn't remember which spell now that she was awake.

All she knew was that she had woken up suddenly with the irresistible need to find the very book she was holding. It was like the book had called her to itself. She couldn't even tell what it was called, the cover was so worn out. There didn't seem to be a title page to speak of. She was baffled.

Thankfully there was still one more week left of the Christmas holidays and she had already finished all of the grading and preparation she needed to do for the term ahead. So she had time to spare. How she wished she could speak to Remus about this, he would have found it fascinating.

But she couldn't. She couldn't speak to anyone about this.

They had won the war, but the cost had been great. Harry, Remus, Tonks, Ginny, Mr Weasley, Fred. All died during the final battle. Sirius, Moody, Dumbledore had died before the final battle but they were at war, they had to carry on. So many lives lost, so many other lives destroyed by their losses. George couldn't cope without Fred and ended up in St Mungos. Mrs Weasley stopped leaving the house altogether, except to visit George. Ron just collapsed in on himself, the pressure of trying to hold it together for everyone she supposed. She was the only one left.

Her parents hadn't died but they might as well have. They could reverse her obliviation of them, she had researched how to do it herself, she had asked experts at the ministry, but nothing could be done.

Hermione sat back in the chair, book in her lap as she composed herself. She hated letting herself think about those she had lost. She kept their memory alive by living her life. She lived for them too.

A/N: i hope you enjoyed the first chapter, as I said at the top I have written up to chapter 12 so far. I plan on posting on a 3 chapter per week schedule (more than likely all at once) until i have finished writing everything, and then i will up that amount of chapters per week depending on how many chapters are left.