A/N: Here is my second story! For those who have read "Blushing Cheeks," thank you so much for your support and for checking this story out too. For those who haven't read it, please check it out!

I plan on posting a chapter twice a week. I hope to be able to keep up with that schedule! Please let me know what you think.

Thank you to my friend and beta, Ms. K. Everdeen! I couldn't do it without you!

Disclaimer: I wish I could live in this world, but I unfortunately don't own any of it.

Chapter 1

Hermione Granger sighed, throwing her pen down in frustration. Her eyes were burning from working so late into the night using only the small, dim desk lamp for light. She used her thumb and forefinger to try and rub the ache away.

Leaning back, she rested her head on the back of the desk chair and closed her eyes. She should have been in bed hours ago, but she had a deadline, and her boss was not the lenient type.

For the most part, she enjoyed her job, but on nights like this, which happened far more often than she cared to admit, she hated it.

Maybe enjoyed was too strong a word. Her job could be satisfying. As junior editor at a large publishing firm in London, she had the privilege of reading bestsellers before they went to press. She had loved the idea of it when she had started, but while she had in fact read a few manuscripts that had turned into bestsellers, more often Hermione was working on what she thought was total trash. It had her wondering how the publishing company ever made a profit.

Truth was, while her pay seemed decent, if you considered how many hours she worked, it was actually pretty meager. But the income was steady and her job as secure as it could be, which she hadn't always had in the past.

Though she had at least an hour or two more work before she finished editing the manuscript, she decided to get some sleep. She would set her alarm early and finish before getting ready for the day. She was hoping she would have more of a fresh mind after a few hours of sleep, which was all she could afford right now.

Hermione struggled to open her eyes, brain foggy. When she finally managed to crack one open, a fuzzy face appeared, seemingly floating in mid-air in front of her.

"Mummy, you have to get up. It's almost time to go to school."

Hermione sat up, suddenly wide awake. She grabbed the alarm clock next to the bed, which read 8:06. She cursed quietly; she had either forgotten to set the clock or had turned it off when it rang. Either way, she had less than an hour to accomplish all her morning tasks, including dropping her daughter off at school and getting to the office, something she allotted no less than two hours to on a daily basis.

She swung up into a sitting position and put her hands on her daughter's shoulders. At six years old, Elaine had the maturity level of someone much older in most things, and Hermione was grateful to see her fully dressed for the day, even if her outfit was slightly more eccentric than Hermione would have chosen.

She smiled, "Did you have breakfast yet?" Elaine nodded, "Good girl. Brush your teeth and hair?" The girl shook her head.

"Ok, run and take care of that and get your backpack and lunch together. It's in the fridge," Hermione kissed her daughter on the forehead, "Thank you for waking me up, hon."

Elaine nodded and scurried out of the room. Hermione rushed to get into the bathroom and get ready for the day. She was already dreading her boss' reaction to her news that she hadn't finished the manuscript, but there was nothing to be done now.

After rushing Elaine to school and breaking several speeding laws to get to her office, Hermione sat down at her cubicle at 9:08. Which was pretty good considering.

She ducked low in her chair and pulled the manuscript and pen from her bag hoping that if she was quick, she may be able to finish the editing before her boss even noticed her.

Her luck held for fifteen minutes before she heard a stern, "Ms. Michaels," from above her head.

She glanced up to see the surly face of her boss. Mr. Andrews was a fifty-something, heavyset man with a balding head and ruddy cheeks. In the two years she had worked for him, Hermione didn't think she had ever seen him crack a smile.

"I certainly hope that isn't the Hester manuscript. That should have already been turned over for final editing," he demanded imperiously.

Hermione made a valiant attempt to hide her cringe, "Sir, I'm just putting the final touches on it. I'll have it turned over within the hour."

"You have been warned about this tardiness before. If you are late turning the manuscripts over, there runs a very real risk that it will not make its release date! That is unacceptable!"

She very much doubted that her turning over the manuscript an hour late this morning would delay a release date months from now. But that was not something she could ever say out loud. "Yes sir, I apologize. I'll finish this as quickly as possible and make sure it never happens again."

"I wish I could believe you Ms. Michaels, but I've heard it all before. If I didn't hear tell of your skill with the red pen, I wouldn't be so lenient with your habitual lateness. But someday even your skill may not save you. Please keep that in mind." With that he spun on his heel and walked away.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief. All told, she had gotten off easy. She'd had the same lecture several times, and it usually lasted much longer and got much louder.

She glanced at her watch, picked up her pen again and got back to work.

The day went by slowly. Once she had finished the Hester manuscript, she had a large stack of smaller works to sort and edit. The good thing was the deadlines for those works were much more reasonable, so she would at least be able to get some good nights' sleep for the rest of the week. Maybe. Hopefully.

At 5:10, she saw Mr. Andrews leave the office through the main doors and enter the elevator. Hermione waited five minutes to make sure he wasn't coming back, then decided to skive off early. It was only fifteen minutes, but she knew that she'd be in trouble if he found out.

She made her way to her car quickly and without incident. She decided that she would drive a bit out of her way to her and Elaine's favorite bakery and coffee shop to pick up some of the chocolate Danish Elaine loves so much. She had the time since she had left early, and Hermione wanted to surprise her daughter with a treat after her own lapse in responsibility that morning.

It took her some time to find a parking space, and by the time she made it through the line, she was running late to get Elaine. She grabbed her bag of Danish after making her payment, and spun around, intent on making her way quickly to her car. In her haste, she wasn't paying attention, and ran headlong into someone, quite literally bouncing off of them.

She was stopped from falling by strong hands wrapped around her upper arms, and she instinctively reached her free hand out to his chest to steady herself.

The chest was covered by a dark gray button up shirt. In her utter embarrassment, she kept her eyes glued to the buttons, not wanting to see the look on the man's face. "I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying attention!"

"That's fairly obvious." Though the words were annoyed, the deep voice sounded playful, like the man was smiling at her discomfort. Her eyes flew up to his face to confirm her suspicions.

The first thing she noticed was his gray eyes, which were indeed dancing with mirth. Then her eyes took in his smile, his dark, wavy, shoulder length hair, threaded through at the temples with gray, which he had swept back from his face. Said face had a few days' worth of growth, giving his look a slight edge that seemed to be at odds with his otherwise rather clean-cut appearance.

It only took a moment for Hermione's eyes to take it all in. It took another moment more for her brain to catch up, and suddenly her heart was in her throat, as she realized with sudden clarity that she knew this man.

"Sirius?!"

Sirius Black was practically growling. It was a trait left over from all the time he had spent as a dog that he often found difficult to curb, even as a human.

He was sitting across the desk from the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. He had just explained his side of the story of the incident that had happened over the weekend for what felt like the hundredth time to his boss. All he wanted to do was get out of there and get to St. Mungo's, but his boss, Mr. Lyons, wasn't in the mood to let him off lightly.

"I don't appreciate your cavalier attitude, Black! You don't appear to understand the gravity of your situation! Your partner has been injured! You have a man accusing you of undue force and harassment!"

"You think I don't know that? I don't understand why we have to keep hashing this out! I already told you what happened. You obviously don't believe me, so why don't we just get to the part where you give me my official reprimand and I can get going to visit Harry at the hospital?" Sirius ground out, gritting his teeth.

Lyons shook his head, exasperated, "You're a real pain in my arse, Black. Fine! You are here by officially suspended for two weeks, during which you will be compelled to attend anger management classes at St. Mungo's. Your reinstatement will be dependent on the evaluation and recommendation of the counselor running the class. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly. Can I leave now?" Sirius practically spat.

His boss rolled his eyes and gestured to the door.

Sirius stalked back to his cubicle and threw himself into his chair with a huff. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, hoping to maybe rub away the headache that was quickly forming.

In truth, Sirius wasn't surprised or even angry about the reprimand. It wasn't the first time he had been in trouble with the Department, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last.

What he was angry about was that Harry was being drug through the mud with him. Sirius didn't think he would get an official reprimand as well, but people had been whispering in the office, and he knew no one believed his story.

Sirius shook his head, suddenly regretting, and not for the first time, picking up his old job as an Auror when he had been brought back from the Veil almost five years ago.

At the time, the decision had been an easy one. He had come back to a world that had moved on without him to find Harry, his Harry, a twenty-five year old married father of one, and a fully trained Auror to boot. Sirius was desperate to make up for lost time and try to make amends for his job as godfather that he had failed so spectacularly at.

He had promised James and Lily he would protect Harry. He had missed his chance while Harry was growing up, and then when he finally had gotten a second chance, he had gone and blown that opportunity too. He had taken some comfort in the news that he had apparently died protecting Harry, though he didn't really remember it.

But when he came back, he was determined to correct his past mistakes and put Harry first, even if he was a grown man who didn't need his godfather to babysit him.

But what Sirius could do was become an Auror again, partner with Harry, and always be there to protect him on the job. And he had been successful. That is, until now.

On Sunday, after a few days of surveillance, they had moved in against a suspect in several home invasions. He and Harry had separated to corner the suspect, but Harry had reached him first, and the creep had gotten the better of him. When Sirius had arrived on the scene, he entered the room to find Harry on the floor and the suspect had turned his wand on him.

Sirius' official story was that the suspect had threatened him with his wand, and he had no choice but to use force to subdue him. While technically true, Sirius had left out the part that when he had seen Harry lying there unconscious and maybe even dead, he had seen red, and it wouldn't have really mattered if they guy was threatening him. He would have fired off the same set of spells, even if the guy had surrendered.

The problem was that the suspect had been injured enough to require a stay in the secure ward of St. Mungo's. Now he was singing a tune of Auror brutality, saying Harry had tried to use force on him when he posed no threat, so he had just been defending himself, and when Sirius had come in, he had already dropped his wand and was no longer armed when Sirius had cursed him.

All crap of course, but whatever spell Harry had been hit with made it so he couldn't remember anything after entering the building, and Sirius' word on the incident wasn't good enough, not when the Department was under scrutiny. Plus he already had a history of being a loose cannon on the job.

No matter now, he would do his time and move on. Thankfully, Harry's injuries were minor, though his recovery would take some time. Sirius was hoping he would be released from the hospital within a day or two.

Sirius started packing up his things and made to leave to visit Harry. Suddenly, he remembered Ginny had asked him to stop by a muggle bakery she had found last month that supposedly had the best chocolate Danish, which Harry had loved. And she thought he needed a pick me up.

Since Sirius was not Ginny's favorite person on a good day, and she was particularly miffed with him at the moment, Sirius wasn't very keen on angering the witch further by showing up without the requested treat. She hadn't said it out loud because it would have upset Harry, but he knew she blamed him for Harry's injury.

Quickly transfiguring his robes to muggle attire, he headed out of the Ministry to apparate.

The shop was actually quite busy when he arrived, so he thought Ginny's assessment of the Danish was probably accurate. He got into the queue to wait.

He was still a few people back in line and he was looking up at the handwritten menu above the counter when a woman slammed into him. She had practically landed in a heap on the floor, but he had instinctively grabbed her arms to steady her. She threw her hand against his chest, and he could tell she was embarrassed by her clumsiness by the way she stared as his chest instead of looking at his face.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't paying attention!" She exclaimed, embarrassment heavy in her tone.

"That's fairly obvious." He said, amused. After the horrible few days he had gone through, being practically run over by an obviously rushed woman was no big deal, even if he would normally be annoyed with her inattention.

She suddenly looked up at him, and he saw that she was actually quite attractive, in a severe business woman sort of way.

Her embarrassed face suddenly shifted to something akin to shock; jaw going slack and eyes widening. When she all but shouted his name it was his turn to be shocked.

How did this random, muggle business woman know him? It didn't make any sense.

Then he looked at her. Really looked at her. She had honey brown curls, and though they were pulled back into a bun, enough had escaped to show that they were rather wild. Her eyes were chocolate brown and right now, they were staring at him intently. She wasn't wearing much make-up, and he could see a light smattering of freckles across her nose.

Unconsciously, his brain began to search for her in his memory. Within moments, it had removed fifteen years off her face and put her in a jumper and jeans, wild curls freely flowing down her back.

His head jerked back as if she'd hit him, his surprise was so great. He didn't even seem to notice when the customer waiting behind him pushed past when he made no move to order on his turn.

"Hermione?"