15 May, 1995

12 Grimauld Place , London , England

Two weeks after school let out for the year, found Hermione Jean Granger in the basement of Number 12 Grimauld place, cleaning with the help of Ginevra Molly Weasley and her twin brothers, Fredrick Gideon and George Fabian.

While in there, Hermione started hearing two vaguely familiar voices talking.

"How do we attract their attention?" asked the first voice.

"I don't exactly know." Said the second voice.

"Do we just talk?"

"They can't hear us, Alex."

Turning around, she saw two women. One had chocolate brown hair, amber eyes and high cheekbones, the other had raven black hair, grey eyes that resembled storm clouds and aristocratic features, the female version of one Sirius Orion Black.

"I thought Blacks were necromancers or something of the sort." The brunette told the Sirius Black look-a-like.

"First off, necromancy is for the dead not the living and we are alive, Alexandra. Second of all, Blacks are dark artists and healers not necromancers, that's the Bones family, if you must know." The ravenette said, rolling her eyes.

"So what do we - oh look Hermione is looking at us."

That got Hermione out of her stupor. "How do you know my name, and who are you two and why does one of you look like me and the other look like a female Sirius Black?"

"Whoa there, calm down dear, one question at a time. First, I know your name because my husband named you. Second, I am Alexandra McKinnon and she is Lyra Black. Third of all, I look like you because I am your mother and she looks like Sirius Black because she's his twin sister."

"WHAT! I don't – you are – what?" Hermione now was very confused. There were two- spirits?- in front of her saying that one was her mother, and the other was saying she was Sirius' sister. What was going on here?

"Yes Alexandra, let's unload everything on the girl." said the one named Lyra Black sarcastically, rolling her eyes at Alexandra McKinnon. "Why don't we explain a bit, alright? But first, did you know that you could see living spirits or that you are a natural legilimens? Or what that means at least?"

"I know what legilimens means but other than that no, I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry?" Hermione said, getting more and more confused by the minute.

"Um Hermione, who are you talking to?" Ginny asked, voicing what she and the twins were thinking in that moment.

Hermione had forgotten they were there while she was talking to the weird spirits. Before this, they had been silently looking at their friend like she had grown a second head. "You can't see them?" she asked, confused.

"They can't see us dear, we're spirits. Only you can."

"See what, Hermione? There's nothing there." Lyra and Ginny said at the same time.

"Why can't they see you?" Hermione asked the two spirits.

While the boys and Ginny looked at Hermione like she was crazy, Lyra answered. "Because they don't have the same abilities you do. Being a natural legilimens means being able to read minds like a trained legilimens would, but also being able to see living spirits. A living being with a magical core is divided into soul, body and spirit. The soul and body are stuck together but the spirit can roam the world freely and see what the body does not or cannot see. The magical being that has complete control of their magical core can see the memories of their spirits in emergencies, like if someone was in a coma or if something important happened while they were asleep and they needed to know exactly what happened. But it is very magically exhausting and the magical core has to have fully matured. A natural legilimens can also transfer thoughts and memories to other people by only maintaining eye contact with the other person, but that takes concentration and a lot of practice."

"How do you know all of this?" Hermione asked, amazed by the amount of knowledge this person had.

"Well, I'm a natural legilimens myself. So, all of this information, I assure you, comes from experience." Lyra answered honestly.

"Ok, so they can't see or hear you, but I can?" Hermione asked to make sure she got everything.

"Yup!" Alexandra said, popping the 'p'.

"We'll explain everything when you see us face-to-face, alright?" Lyra said.

"Where are your bodies then?" Hermione asked, wanting the explanation sooner rather than later.

"Hermione, what are you talking about? Bodies? Who are you talking to?" Fred asked, fed up with not being in the loop. Looking at his twin and Ginny, he saw they all wanted the same answers.

"Do you know about living spirits?" Hermione asked, by way of answering their question.

"Uh, yes. Everyone raised in the magical world knows about them but only natural legilimens can see them. Oh! Are you a natural legilimens?" Ginny said, starting to get into the loop now.

"Apparently, I am, and I'm talking to two living spirits right now." Hermione explained.

"Oh!" Ginny and the twins said at the same time, now understanding what was happening in front of them.

"What are they saying then?" George asked, interested now that he knew Hermione wasn't actually going crazy.

"The important question is, why haven't you noticed this before? There must have been other spirits in say diagon alley, platform nine and three quarters or Hogwarts, right?" Ginny asked, confused.

"Good question, with a slightly complicated answer. There are places, like Hogwarts, that have wards against living spirits. Places like diagon alley or platform nine and three quarters are so crowded you can't really tell the difference between living beings and spirits. Grimauld place is supposed to be warded against living spirits, because they can be used for spying, but because I am a Black myself, my spirit can roam freely, why would a Black spy on their family members, or I can let certain spirits into the house, like Alex here." Lyra explained, impressed by Ginny's intellectual question.

"Then why haven't I seen you around Grimauld place? We have been here for about a week." Hermione asked, confused.

"Because someone put extra wards around this place against all spirits. I've only just been able to break through them to get mine and Alex's spirits to this basement to try and talk to you." Lyra said, explaining Hermione's question.

Hermione repeated the conversation to the rest of them, nodding along. But then asked another important question. "Where are your bodies, then?"

"Right. See that mirror in the corner." When Hermione moved towards the mirror Lyra was indicating and everyone had followed, she continued. "Put your palm on it and repeat what I say."

When Hermione did as told, Lyra began to chant "ego mandatum tuum dimittere secreta abscondita per unum cum duas facies post haec umbras, in nomine caput antiqui domum, ita mote sit."

Hermione repeated what she heard word – for – word. All of a sudden, the mirror began to shift and disappear like shadows and a door way was in its place that lead into a corridor with lanterns lining it, all of which suddenly lit up with magical blue fire inside each of them.

"Whoa! And what was that you chanted anyway Hermione?" Ginny asked amazed and intrigued at the same time, while they made their way through the corridor.

"I don't know, I just repeated what I was told by the spirit. Hey, what was that language and what did that mean?" Hermione asked confused.

"It was Latin and it meant 'I command thy to release the secrets hidden by the one with two faces behind these shadows, in the name of the head of this ancient home, so mote it be.'" Alexandra said with Lyra nodding along in confirmation.

"Wow, you both know Latin?" Hermione asked, interested.

"Pureblood families teach their children Latin at a young age. Most get their children together with other pureblood children to be taught by a tutor. Others, like my family, get a member of their house to teach all the children in that house. Alexandra and her sister were taught by a tutor with about six other children from different pureblood families, while I was taught with my brother and cousins by my uncle Alphard." Lyra explained.

"We weren't taught Latin when we were young." Ginny said for her and the twins, slightly confused.

Alexandra frowned "well, that's weird." She shared a look with Lyra that Hermione didn't understand.

"Why don't they teach Latin at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.

"They used to teach it, as it was needed for spell crafting, but when ol' dumby became headmaster he cancelled all language classes and most of the electives, like healing and warding. That's why Hogwarts lost the title of the best school in Europe and became the worst school, it also helped that he kept teachers like Binns, and every DADA teacher he got to teach the subject was worse than the one before them. Dumbledore basically ruined education in the UK. That's why every pureblood family that can afford it, gets tutors in all of the subjects needed in a certain career or in general." Alexandra explained, her hate for the headmaster clearly showing.

Hermione knew she should probably defend her headmaster but he has been doing some pretty questionable actions, like stopping anyone from sending Harry any letters and even keeping teachers like Trelawney and Binns, and now these people were telling her that he cancelled important classes when he became headmaster. Something weird was going on here.

"Don't forget he also removed most of the books in the library and the restricted section and limited the ingredients in the potion labs at the school and limited the curriculum and made the exams easier for 'average' students a.k.a almost squibs. Oh, and don't forget getting a pureblood that's never been in the muggle world to teach muggle studies, and making it an elective and removing wizarding studies from the curriculum all together to keep muggle-raised students ignorant of our world, so they are isolated from their wizard-raised peers, look to him for advice and follow him blindly, so that he looks like he isn't bigoted, when everyone with half a mind knows that he's more bigoted than my mother." Lyra said, rolling her eyes at the end.

"WHAT!" Ginny and the twins exclaimed after Hermione repeated what the spirits had said absentmindedly, shocked as well.

"You didn't know, aren't you supposed to be smart or something? Oh, look there's the door that leads to our bodies." Alexandra said this all so casually, you would have thought she was talking about the weather.

She was right, of course. They were so distracted by the conversation that they didn't see that the corridor had ended and right in front of them was a metal door.

"We solemnly promise we'll explain everything once we can actually have a conversation face-to-face, alright?" Once Hermione repeated what she heard to the others and they all nodded, still looking very confused, Lyra continued. "All you have to do to open the door is touch your wand to it and say the marauder motto in Latin 'ego solemniter iuro quod ego sum, usque ad non est bonum.'"

After Hermione did that, the door opened and they found themselves in a lab-like room with capsules all around them. At that moment the spirits of Lyra Black and Alexandra McKinnon disappeared. Once all of them were inside, the lanterns all lit up.

In the room, there were eight capsules placed in a circle. All of them were connected with tubes that led to a tank each, that any muggleborn would have known to be oxygen tanks.

"Hey, look at this." Ginny shouted as they all inspected the people inside. Once everyone was around her, she said "He looks like an older version of Harry, doesnt he?"

"You're right, and look next to him, it's one of the spirits I was talking to." Hermione said while looking around, recognizing the female version of Sirius Black.

"Look, they all have labels on them. The Harry look-a-like's label says 'James Potter'. It can't be the real James Potter, can it?" Fred asked, looking at the label, now very confused as James Potter had died fourteen years ago.

Looking at the label of the female Sirius Black, it said 'Lyra Black-Potter'. "That doesn't make any sense, but it seems so familiar at the same time." Hermione said, confused. They all agreed with her but were still very confused.

"Why don't we just wake them up and they can answer all our questions." Ginny told them, trying to stay calm and rational.

"Right, but how do we wake them up?" George asked.

They all started looking around the room, looking for a way to wake the comatose people. After looking for about fifteen minutes, Hermione found a box labelled 'DO NOT OPEN'.

"I think I found something." She said attracting all their attention from searching and they came and surrounded her, all of them looking at the mysterious box in front of them.

Hermione swallowed nervously and opened it. Inside was a vial of a green coloured gas.

"What is this?" Hermione asked, not knowing what the gas was.

"Look there's a paper at the bottom of the box, I think they're instructions, how convenient." Ginny said jokingly, laughing nervously.

They were all nervous of what they might discover when they wake these people up, but they were also a little excited. Whatever they were feeling or whatever happened in these next few hours, they knew their world would never be the same. Oh, how right they were.

Taking the paper out of the box, Hermione read it out loud, "To wake the prisoners, one must

1- Open all the capsules. To do so, press the button on the side of each capsule that says 'open'.

2- Break the vial of green gas in the middle of the room, which is 'Wiggenweld Potion' in gas form that will wake the prisoners up instantly after they breathe it in.

DO NOT FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS IF THE PRISONERS ARE NOT UNDER CONTROL IN ANY WAY OR IF YOU WERE NOT SPECIFICALLY ORDERED BY MYSELF, A.P.W.B.D.

"Should we really do this? They might be death eaters." Hermione asked cautiously.

"Yes, we should. We need the answers and James Potter isn't a death eater, is he?" Ginny asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer to the question. Or did she?

"No, he's not, you're right. Let's get this over with." Hermione said sighing, wanting the answers to so many questions that she knew only the people in this room have.

So, Ginny and the twins went around the room opening all of the capsules, one by one.

"Hey look, there are twins here that look like an older version of me and George." Fred said, amazed at the likeness between this set of twins and him and his twin.

"And this woman looks like an older version of me but you don't see me commenting, so hurry up, will you?" Ginny said torn between being amazed at the likeness between her and the red-headed women in the capsule in front of her and being irritated at how slow Fred was.

After opening all of the capsules, they joined Hermione in the middle of the room where she had the vial of green gas held carefully in her hands.

"Ready?" Hermione asked her friends, looking at each of them in the eyes.

"As we'll ever be" the three of them said at the same time.

At their words, Hermione held the vial in front of her and dropped it.

As the gas spread all over the room, they could hear eight collective gasps for breath and a person saying "Why the bloody hell does it smell like 'Wiggenweld Potion' in here?"