"That looked painful. He might be a little more Slytherin than we ever gave him
credit for," Remus said with a slight chuckle.
Looking up and narrowing his eyes at his friend, Sirius admitted, "I think I'd rather
be stabbed with an antler again."
The old house offered her few familiar comforts. Despite not having been there in
almost a decade, Mia knew which way to find the kitchen, the library, the old drawing room
where Sirius kept the tapestry and an old Persian rug hidden away. She knew which room
had been hers, so long ago.
It did not feel like hers any longer.
She found herself in Sirius's bed, clinging to the sheets and trying to breathe the
smell of him in. She wanted it to sink into her skin and ease her worries and grief, but the
smell—while decidedly still Sirius—was different than the smell of her bedsheets back at
the flat that she shared with him and Remus. A flat which no longer belonged to them.
Her home was gone. Her brother was dead. And her world left behind her.
Mia felt lost—displaced in time more now than she ever had felt during her initial
trip back to the past.
She heard Harry's footsteps long before he entered the room. The old house
creaked with every movement, so she knew that he had first gone to her old room to see
if she was there, only to find her in Sirius's room instead.
He knocked lightly on the door. "Hermione?"
The name sounded foreign. She sniffled and then whispered. "I haven't been called
that in a long time."
Harry stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. "Are you okay?" he
asked as he approached the bed, taking a seat on the end of it.
"A little freaked out," she admitted quietly. "The boys explain everything to you?"
"Boys?"
She chuckled softly. "Remus and Sirius."
"You were my dad's sister?" Harry asked. "And Sirius's... soul mate?"
Mia widened her eyes as she sat up. "They got out more than I thought they would."