Author's Note: Hello! Firstly, this story was one of TWO that I wrote for the Bewitching Fiction Summer Challenge. It's been posted since September there and you would have been able to read it first there. I do believe I will be posting all Harry Potter fanfics there first before I post them here. Because I heart that site and everyone on it. The theme of the summer challenge was "Rare Pairs" so hopefully everyone enjoys this rare pair.

If you haven't already visited, please check out Bewitching Fiction! Not only do other authors post ahead there, but there is a great group on the forums that chats all day every day about HP and just every day things.

Please see the end author's note about more Harry Potter fanfiction from me.

Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter. I just play make believe with the characters.

Grey Secrets

Albus Dumbledore was a man who kept secrets.

Hermione knew this early on in her time at Hogwarts, accelerated by the dangerous and life threatening events that kept happening to she and her friends. Each time she'd wound up in the hospital wing, visiting or being healed, she became more wary of the bespectacled headmaster who spoke in riddles and had too keen of an interest in Harry Potter.

After the battle at the Ministry, Hermione was told she was to spend weeks bedridden thanks to the curse that had been hurled at her. Just days into her sentence, she became restless and started wandering the infirmary wing with its various doors and private rooms. Most were empty, any that weren't available to her readily had been locked. Though quick 'alohomoras' satisfied her curiosities short term, finding out what was in the locked rooms usually dampened her enthusiasm. Most were brewing rooms that went unused thanks to the residence of Snape in the dungeons.

One room, at the back of the wing, however, remained locked until she went through her mental catalog of spells to free the lock.

Inside was a boy, sitting on a larger than average hospital bed, playing Exploding Snap with himself. He cursed when the card in his hand exploded with a quiet force, setting off a chain reaction with the other cards in the house he was trying to build.

"Rubbish. I can't ever get a full house built before something happens. Oh, hello?"

He stood to clean up his mess and paused, seeing Hermione at the door. His greeting was friendly, curious, open. Hazel eyes set behind glasses topped with a familiar mop of black hair took in Hermione's shocked face with worry. "Are you okay? Are you sick as well?"

She didn't want to believe it, but a ghost stood in front of her. He had to be. Because James Potter, looking as though he was still in school and barely older than herself, stood in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. Playing Exploding Snap. Her knees gave and Hermione found herself watching the floor rush to meet her face.

But Chaser James Potter was far quicker and ran forward to catch her.

"Hey, hey! Are you okay? It's been awhile since I've had a pretty girl faint over me…"

He helped her to his bed, wandlessly vanishing the debris of burnt playing cards to make room, and sat with her on the edge. He was quiet while Hermione appeared to hyperventilate, then slowly bring herself back from panic.

He rubbed her back gently with one hand and held one of hers with the other.

"How are you here?"

James quirked his head to the side. "I'm not sure what you mean. I'm sick and old Dumbles and Pomfrey agreed to help me."

"How long have you been here?"

"Oh...I don't know. Maybe a year? It's what, June? I was admitted in August, I think."

Hermione continued to ask questions for nearly an hour and James obliged. He was open, honest, and didn't beat around the bush with his answers.

"Let's stop for now? Pomfrey should be coming around soon with my medicine and I know you broke your way in." James waggled a finger at Hermione, grinning slyly. "One last question and I claim it."

Hermione frowned.

"What's your name? You know mine. You've said it three times already. But who are you, Miss Cat Burglar?"

Hermione huffed in mock outrage. "I'm not stealing anything! I was just bored and wandered down the hall!"

"But my dear," he got down on one knee. "You've stolen my heart. Won't you tell me your name?"

"Hermione, my name is Hermione…" She could feel her face, the heat radiating from her skin. Even her ears felt hot.

James stood and escorted her to the door. "Visit me again sometime, Hermione. I get bored myself, with just Dumbles to talk to. He's looking a bit older than usual, I think I'm running him ragged."

He gently pushed her out of his room and the door clicked shut, sounding impossibly loud in the quiet hall. Instantly, she felt the magical ward she'd taken down erect itself once more.

Hermione visited every night.

They talked, played Exploding Snap, asked more questions.

But she was careful about what she mentioned. Her mind was having a hard time wrapping around why this sixteen year old James Potter was tucked away. Hidden in a forgotten room in an ancient castle.

"I like you, Hermione. You're an honorary hooligan. Wait. I've always wanted to say that word…" James looked pleased at the thought of his word choice.

He was put out when she told him she was leaving for the summer hols the next day. He pouted and sulked for most of her visit, barely spoke to her and purposefully made his deck of cards explode noisily whenever she tried to have a conversation. Eventually, she got up to leave, hardly able to contain her stomps of frustration.

She nearly shrieked when he hugged her from behind.

"Sorry, 'My. I'd say owl me, but…"

"J-james?"

He hugged her tighter. "Just visit me when you get back?"

/*\

Hermione was clever. She used her classes and OWLs as a way to come to Hogwarts once that summer. McGonagall gave Hermione tea and they discussed her options, her future. Afterwards, the transfiguration professor received a Floo call and asked if Hermione would be agreeable to taking a walk around the school. She would find her and walk her to the gates when she was finished.

Fifteen minutes later, Hermione had slithered into the shadows of the hospital wing and was disassembling the wards on James Potter's room.

"James?"

"Hermione?! What on earth are you wearing?"

Hermione looked down at blushed. She was in her Muggle clothing today, having visited straight from her parents' home. Cutoff jean shorts and a loose white blouse with a wide neck. It was hardly the attire she'd been visiting him in the month previous; pajamas under a fluffy robe.

James ran to her and hugged her tight. Hermione couldn't bite back her grin as she did the same to him.

When he pulled away, his smile faded slowly. It was replaced by a hard look, one that she'd never seen on his face but had been mirrored on Harry's.

"What happened to you?"

When Hermione gave him a confused look, he sighed and ran a finger across the exposed skin of her chest. His fingers barely ghosted along the healing evidence of cursed skin, the new scar still pink and puckered.

"You never did ask why I was in the hospital wing for so long," she smiled sadly. She took a step to the side and shut the door behind her. She needed his warm fingers off her chest before her whole body turned red from embarrassment.

They talked for about two hours before the silver tabby patronus found its way into the secret room. Hermione replied with her own silver otter that she would meet the deputy headmistress at the grand staircase in half an hour.

"'My? Do me a favor?"

Hermione paused.

"Be careful. Things are being whispered in the castle. Don't trust Dumbles."

When Hogwarts was brimming with students again, it wasn't long before Hermione was able to visit James. Harry had managed to land himself in the hospital wing the first night. Her visit was brief but they were able to chat a little.

Hermione was worried about how long he was going to be kept in the small room and just how sick James really was.

Come Halloween, as Hermione tried to leave the room, she came face to face with Dumbledore himself.

"Miss Granger."

James paled slightly and his shoulders slumped. "Dumbles."

"Miss Granger, if you would wait out in the hall? I need a moment with my young friend, here."

Dumbledore's face was far from gentle, but certainly nowhere near the hard lines she'd seen in the past.

She stepped out and turned her head as the door was swinging shut. Between the door and jam, she could see James purposefully avoid eye contact and turn his back on the doorway. The wood barrier shut with a quiet click and echoed with finality in Hermione's ears. Behind her, she could hear the click of shoes walk up to stand behind her.

"Miss Granger, if you'll follow me?"

McGonagall looked down at the hunched over girl in front of her, frowning. Albus wanted her to take the girl to her office and Obliviate her. It wasn't in her nature to invade the minds of her students, but Hermione Granger had stumbled upon something much larger than herself. If there was any person who could make Minerva McGonagall waiver on her own usually rigid convictions, it was Hermione. Hermione who, had the intelligence to know when to keep a secret, but a heart firmly rooted in loyalty and love to her best friend.

The session in the deputy headmistress' office hadn't gone exactly how she thought it would. It was made clear to her that Dumbledore wanted her obliviated, however the older woman had proposed a median between the two extremes.

A pensieve.

Her memories would be safe. The knowledge given to her would be safe.

And, even after it was completed, if she chose to pick up those memories once more, she would be free to do so. If she chose to keep them bottled away, it was understandable.

/*\

Victory was something that felt so hollow.

It wasn't until she was standing in the smoking grounds of the Hogwarts castle that a thought occurred to her. It was faint, a whisper of an idea. It asked her to search, to hunt.

Her feet lead her to McGonagall's office.

To a decorative box hidden in a thick book. So Muggle in thought, no dark wizard would have assumed to look.

A vial of memories brought a high ring to her ears as her mind struggled to remember, tried to reach out.

She wandered back up to the headmaster's office and found herself sitting under the stairs, hiding. She didn't know how, but she wanted these. She wanted them...back. For the time being, she settled for pouring the vial into Dumbledore's pensieve and plunging her head into the silver wisps as they swirled like mercury.

"JAMES!"

Memories invaded her mind, sinking into the hollow crevices that had been created by McGonagall. The time spent in the hospital wing, her sneaking into his room during that following summer. Dumbledore catching her as she left his hidden room.

The memories were an ocean wave, a salty barrage invading her senses and suffocating her.

The memories were a hurricane, thrashing her body and leaving bruises on her mind and heart.

The memories were fire that consumed her soul and left scorched ash.

The knowledge that Dumbledore had combined grey magic with Muggle science and created a duplicate, a clone of James Potter to use as bait. Bait to tempt Harry into fighting if he refused, gave up, or didn't act as the old wizard wanted. This James was a sacrificial lamb.

Hermione had just stumbled upon the unfinished and unpolished version before he was done.

All the Potters had been to Albus Dumbledore were tools, the means to the end that he wanted. Hermione Granger was a tool, as well. She realized this on the run over the nine months. The picture was so much larger and darker now that she remembered.

But despite this bitter pill she was swallowing with surprising ease, there was one question that still weighed on her mind.

"Where's James?"

Hermione went to the hospital wing and found the door at the end of the hall unwarded and partially open. The bed she remembered was there, unkempt and wrinkled. Clothes were piled in the corner, covered in a thin layer of dust and some thrown under the bed.

It looked like he hadn't been there in a very long time.

With a sigh, Hermione sat on the edge of the bed and tried to hold back the tears that were gathering at the corners of her eyes. Gathering the sheets in her fists, she didn't want to think of the reasons for his absence. what happened to him or who. Despite her best efforts, a choked sob escaped her lips.

There was a sigh behind her.

"Hermione? Don't cry…"

Her body froze, her back stiff and knuckles turning white from gripping too hard. Her breath was short and sounded watery behind the tears.

"Turn around, Hermione."

He stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame and the other gripped the handle of the door. His face was covered in ash, a bruise forming under one eye, and and there was some singed hair sticking up from his scalp. Shirt torn and a bloody scratch showing through, he looked as though he'd been to the end of the world and back.

"I probably took out a half dozen Death Eaters, saved some red headed bloke with a foul mouth… Am I impressive yet?"

He looked like a man, confident and strong. But despite his seemingly boastful words, he was hesitance tinged with hope. He was a lost warrior who seemed clueless with what to do with a crying girl.

Hermione couldn't help but let out a thick laugh, her lips trembling as they overcame her emotions.

"James. You idiot. Come here."

Instead of simply walking into Hermione's open arms, James took it upon himself to nearly launch himself at her, causing the both of them to fall back on the bed.

James kissed her once, something full of satisfaction and an innocent promise, then rested his forehead on hers.

"I missed you."

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! I have a second story that is also being posted called "Goddess of Time" from the Bewitching Fiction Summer Challenge. Please also read that nifty rare pair!

As for my Grimmauld Fairy Tales series, I will be honest. I'm burned out. I need to find my muse for that series again. Unfortunately, I have about a half dozen half finished stories that are sitting in my drive and one day, I hope to be able to finish them and post them. Some of them were requests from some of my most loyal readers. So don't worry, I didn't forget about you.
As for other Harry Potter stories, I hope to write more for challenges at Bewitching Fiction. I now refuse to do any for Granger Enchanted ever again. I also have little ideas in my head that are half sketched out that I also hope to do after the new year.

Right now, I'm occasionally posting for my non-Harry Potter fanfic when I can and just focusing on real life and finishing school. Adulting is serious business, after all.

Again, thank you again for reading and please leave a review to tell me what you thought. I enjoyed having to look into the Black family background to make this story somewhat cohesive.

Best,

itaketewords