“Hermione!” Sirius exclaimed as he opened the door and ushered me into the house. “I was beginning to worry.”
“I ran into a little trouble,” I said, setting down the grocery bag full of the scraps I was able to steal. Voldemort had recently gained the faculty to know where and when any magic was being performed, so lately Sirius had to at like a muggle. This meant I had to steal whatever we needed, because we knew Sirius would be killed on sight out of our humble abode.
“What kind of trouble?” he asked, his eyes filling with worry. He looked so unnatural that way; his face was made for laughing. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything, because every time he worried about me it usually meant he risked the outside world so I would be safe.
“It was nothing really,” I said, giving him a reassuring smile as I pulled my long, bushy brown hair into two neat braids and rolled up the sleeves of my baggy sweatshirt. “Just Snape and Malfoy, they’re nothing to worry about.”
Sirius frowned. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad we still have Severus Snape on our side.”
Not wanting to spoil this rare kind thought towards Snape, I didn’t mention the look I had read in Snape’s face, and just nodded in agreement.
As I walked over to our little wood-burning stove to cook some frozen peas I had swiped while they were thawing on someone’s counter, I tripped on my long jeans.
“I wish I could fix those, honey,” Sirius said as he helped my up. “Tomorrow, when I go out, I’ll try and find some sowing stuff, maybe I can fix them by hand.”
“When you go out?” I asked, incredulously. “I don’t think so, Sirius. You are not going to go running around in broad daylight just because my jeans are too long.”
Before Sirius could answer me, we heard three quick taps on the door. Sirius went over and tapped once, which was echoed by the person on the outside. The secret knock.
Sirius opened the door and let in his old friend and my surrogate uncle, Remus Lupin. Remus had a secret, which the two of them thought I didn’t know about, but I did. It really is pretty easy to figure out that someone is a werewolf when they come by every night except for when there is a full moon. At least, it’s pretty easy to figure out after noticing this pattern for nearly seven years.
“I brought you a present, Hermy,” Lupin said, after a warm embrace with Sirius. I almost laughed out loud when he handed me a new pair of jeans, exactly my size.
“Where did you get these?” I asked, wondering at how he could find me something so perfect.
“Oh, I have my ways,” was all he said. Then he asked, “What’s for dinner?” Sirius and I chuckled and pretty soon I had a yummy dinner of peas and stale bread out on the table.
Remus had not always been such a friend to me. I remember the first night I spent with Sirius, Lupin came to visit. I heard a voice in the kitchen, and soon gathered that Sirius had moved my sleeping form into a soft bed and was now having a discussion with an old friend.
“YOU DID WHAT?” I heard Lupin question, rather loudly.
“Would you keep it down? She’s sleeping,” Sirius said, with a sweet softness in his voice.
“Padfoot,” Lupin began, using what I figured was a childhood nickname, “I just can’t understand why you would do this. Why would you do this? We’re already first on Wormtail’s list; you know it as well as I do. Why would you make things worse for yourself by taking in a muggle? Anyhow, you’re putting her in more danger, she’s probably safer out on her own than in here with a wanted ‘criminal’” He said the last word with such disgust, I was pretty sure he did not believe Sirius to be a criminal. I heard a chair scrape against the ground and a loud sigh as Lupin sat down.
“Do you know what day it is, Moony?” Sirius asked politely, and I heard another chair scrape against the floor as he also sat down.
“September first, why?” Lupin asked, confused as to why Sirius was changing the subject.
“Today is the day Harry would’ve started Hogwarts. That’s why I took this girl in. When I came upon her, she was looking at the Weasley kids. I’m sure you’ve heard by now what happened to them,” Sirius said, and I heard a grunt of assent form Lupin.
“It was the way she looked at Ron, the one Harry’s age, which did it to me, Moony. She was looking at him like she knew him, or at least like his death hurt her deeply. And as I watched her, and saw her about to feint, I knew that Harry would’ve wanted me to take her in.” By now I had stolen from my bed and was gazing through the crack between the door and the wall. I saw Sirius look up at Lupin, an expression on his face more sincere than anything I’d ever seen.
“Sirius, Harry was barely one year old when he died, how can you know what he would’ve wanted you to do?” Lupin asked, and I could tell he feared for his friend’s sanity.
Suddenly, I realized who the Harry was they were talking about. Harry Potter, the only one who ever had the power to vanquish Voldemort, the child who the Evil One killed on Halloween all those years ago. And somehow, I felt the same way about him I had felt about the boy in the street, I felt as though he, too, was my friend.
“Moony, don’t you ever get that feeling that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be? I get that feeling all the time. It’s as if we’re in another dimension or something. That’s when I know what Harry would want. And there’s one more thing, I feel like I know this girl. I knew her name was Hermione as soon as I saw her. I knew she was a muggle, but most importantly, I knew there was magic in her.” Sirius looked directly into Lupin’s eyes, and asked, “Don’t you ever get that feeling?”
Slowly, Lupin nodded. “When I found out Dumbledore had died, that’s when I started to get the feeling that this just wasn’t the way the world was supposed to be,” he paused and took a deep breath, as though the memory he had brought up was too painful to think about, “All right, I’ll help out with the girl, maybe we can even teach her a little, if you think there really is magic in her. I mean, today would’ve been the day she went to Hogwarts, too.”
I remember how my heart skipped a beat when Sirius said that there was magic in me. I didn’t know who Dumbledore as, and I had no clue what Hogwarts meant, but I felt in my heart that I had known before. Just like Sirius had said, it was as if I had been living in the wrong dimension all my life.