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Normally, Sirius has better sense than to traipse alone outside the castle on a school night. Remus would argue that he is utterly without sense at all – like that’s not a surprise – while James would remind him that he could get detention if Filch catches him on any other day except today. Not when they only have three days left before Gryffindor’s match against Ravenclaw. As star Beater, everyone is counting on him to lead their House into victory, James’ legendary Seeker skills notwithstanding.
But he’s just heard rumours that Reggie had joined the same trigger-happy, mass-murdering cult Bella’s been brainwashed into, and since he’s already lost hope of ever coaxing his little brother away from the dark side, he decides that the next best thing to do would be to get shitfaced drunk in the woods, chain smoke, and maybe have a shag or two with a wood nymph, provided Alcott Pressman’s accounts of having seen a half-naked woman in the Forbidden Forest was actually true. (Unbeknownst to all parties, what one had mistaken for a wood nymph was, sadly, nothing more than a Pandora Thorne high on faerie dust, but that’s a story for another day.)
Sirius fiddles with the rim of his flask – charmed, of course, to be bottomless, thanks to his dearly departed Uncle Al, may Merlin bless his soul – and debates whether or not he’d be better off going back to the common room. But then he remembers the chaos he’d left behind, what with Evans turning James into a slug, Remus practically buried in a mountain of extra credit homework, and Peter being chased around the room by Marley’s cat, the tail ends of his robes catching fire, and he figures he’d probably be better off taking his chances in the Forest for once.
What he doesn’t count on, however, is crossing paths with a fellow classmate at this time of night.
At first he thinks he’s hallucinating, drunk off his arse, but then he remembers that he hasn’t taken a drop of firewhiskey yet.
He blinks twice, yet the image before him remains.
He doesn’t know her name. He’s been too busy playing pranks and saving James from being killed by Evans too many times since the new term started to pay proper attention to the new transfer student from Ilvermorny. But he’s heard from Dorcas who heard it from Lizzie who heard it from Marie that the new girl had refused to join her dorm mates when they’d offered to take her several times to Hogsmeade.
Keeps to herself, they say. Meek, quiet as a church mouse, and almost always with her head buried in a book. Not the type to make friends or ever get herself into trouble.
And yet… He finds her alone in the Forbidden Forest, levitating several masked corpses with the sort of casual nonchalance no ordinary schoolgirl could ever hope to fake.
The flask Sirius is holding drops to the ground.
What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck?
“Err, hi?”
The stranger with the abnormally messy brown curls stares at him.
Sirius shamelessly stares right back.
The girl is in her Hogwarts uniform sans tie, her once white shirt torn and speckled with grime, and there’s blood running down her forehead all the way to her chin from what he assumes is a gash on the head, which is a shame because, under normal circumstances, he would have found her very pretty.
Overall, it’s a look Sirius himself is familiar with, having sported the same ghastly appearance several times a year like clockwork. But that’s only because he has a werewolf for a best friend. What could possibly be her excuse?
Sirius never gets to find out.
In the split second it takes him to inquire about the huge elephant in the room – read: the three corpses floating in midair, all jolly looking and all – the girl moves. Before he knows it, her wand is pointed at him, causing the dead bodies to drop to the floor like dried lacewing flies, and through the bright yellow flash of light, he thinks he could make out the beginnings of an Obliviate spell.
He sidesteps it just in time, making a mental note to thank James for those deadly Quidditch practices intended for him to develop fast reflexes, and pulls his own wand out from his sleeve.
“Did you just –” Sirius takes a moment to cast a shield in front of him and gapes at her. “Did you just attempt to Obliviate me –”
Another spell whizzes past his ear, narrowly missing him, and Sirius yelps. “Woman, what the bloody hell is wrong with you –”
The girl looks at him with a mixture of regret and annoyance, then leaps right into a third Obliviate. Sirius curses his luck. He should’ve stuck it out back at Gryffindor Tower, Godric be damned.
In a panic, he dives straight into a bush and, when he feels like he’s covered enough distance between him and his attacker, transforms into Padfoot. His heart races madly in time to the beat of his footsteps as he stumblingly makes his way out of the Forest, not daring to look back to check if the girl has seen him.
He feels her chasing after him – smells her, more like – but Sirius is stronger and faster in his Animagus form and he’s got enough incentive to make it all the way back to the castle in one piece.
He’s too young and beautiful to die yet, and besides that, he’s got plans. He plans to join the famed Order of the Phoenix and defeat the dark wizard bent on terrorizing the Wizarding World, attend James and Evans’ wedding and give the most embarrassing best man speech of all time, and go backpacking and fuck his way through Italy with Remus and Peter once the war’s over. So he absolutely refuses to be killed by someone who looks like she could barely win a fight against a flobberworm.
She’s so tiny and harmless looking, Sirius would’ve been hard-pressed to think her capable of murder. But he’s seen the dead bodies. He’s seen her draw her wand against him. Whoever this girl is, she’s trouble.
Somewhere between the first and fourth floors, he eventually loses her. He hides behind an alcove and shifts back into himself, breathing rapidly and pressing his forehead against the wall, his skin slicked with sweat.
He may have lost her for now, but he knows, as surely as he knows that he and his friends would die for each other, that his business with the girl is far from over.
He tells all his friends about her. It doesn’t go the way he expects it to.
“Hermione? That new girl from Ravenclaw?” Remus says, head tilted back as he tries to put a face to the name.
“I was her partner in DADA the other week,” Peter recalls. “At the end of the day, she couldn’t even disarm me. And you all know I’m bollocks at duelling.”
Even James is looking skeptically at him. “I don’t know, Pads,” he tells him with a shake of his head. “That doesn’t sound like something a girl in our year could do.”
“Exactly!” Sirius points out. “That’s what makes her dangerous! She tried to Obliviate me and most likely killed those other guys, whoever the fuck they are. Come to think of it, they looked like Death Eaters…”
“So you’re saying a seventh year student killed three grown Death Eaters all by herself? And what? She went to the Forbidden Forest to bury the bodies?” Remus frowns. Sirius doesn’t like the way he’s looking at him, like there’s something wrong with him. Who does Remus think Sirius is? Fucking Bella?
James laughs loudly and pats Sirius on the shoulder. “Ah, you’ve probably just had too much to drink, Padfoot,” he says with a sympathetic, almost pitying wince. “Or have you been smoking more of that Muggle weed again? I told you that’s bound to mess with your head.”
And just like that, the matter is dismissed. Sirius tries to make them understand, tries to tell them that the whole thing wasn’t a hallucination and that they ought to warn Dumbledore and the rest of the professors before someone else ends up dead or missing, but it’s useless.
To them, he’s just silly old Sirius, being a drama queen.
But that’s fine. Sirius is completely, one hundred percent, totally fine. He could find the proof he needs to convince his friends. He has no doubt about it.
Sirius starts watching her after that.
He thinks he’s being subtle about it, but everyone else has noticed. His friends think he’s too obsessed and is behaving like a dog with a bone – pun intended – while the rest of his schoolmates, namely the girls, think he’s finally fallen in love.
He wants to tell them that there is no way in Godric’s green earth that he’d ever stick to one woman, especially one whose surname rhymes with “Danger” so much so that he starts referring to her as “Granger Danger” in his head, but it’s useless.
Everyone thinks the new girl is completely harmless, but Sirius knows better.
He’s shadowed her enough times to know that. He’s seen the way she hides her talent– acting dumb in class then performing complicated charm tricks the moment everyone’s backs are turned – and how hard she tries to blend in.
She’s good at it, too. She keeps people at arms’ length by refusing study group sessions with her fellow Ravenclaws, keeps her head down whenever an impromptu fight breaks out in the corridors, and stays in the Great Hall for meals just long enough for people to forget that she’s even there. She’d probably have gotten away with it if Sirius hadn’t been watching her too closely.
For all of Sirius’ tracking though – he refuses to call it stalking, despite the Marauders’ insistence – he has yet to find any concrete evidence of wrongdoing.
He wants to announce to the entire school that they ought to stay away from the strange girl, but he knows better than to think that anyone would believe him.
“Just woo her like a normal person, Pads, and be done with it,” James, who most definitely is not a normal person with normal wooing skills (see: Evans circa 1971-1977 as evidence), tells him the morning of their match against Ravenclaw. “If those bloody eagles win the Quidditch Cup because of your lack of focus, I swear to Godric I will kill you and resurrect you as an Inferi only so I can kill you again.”
Sirius concedes, albeit begrudgingly, the threat of James going ballistic superseding all thoughts of teenage serial killers for a moment. He shoves all thoughts of the new girl away in a neat little box inside his head, to be revisited later, and focuses on the game.
They win the match, as predicted.
Sirius and James make it all the way to the boys’ locker room carried on their teammates’ shoulders, the golden cup raised high above their heads, their voices a cacophony of leonine roars and festive swearing.
Sirius, who is feeling relaxed and carefree for the first time since the Forbidden Forest incident, waves away James and the others as he allows himself several extra minutes of time in the shower, vowing to catch up with them later, where they’ll undoubtedly party until their livers collapse.
He is halfway through mentally updating his list of Top Ten Women to Shag Before Graduation, sorted by House, when he hears footsteps behind him.
He turns off the shower and wraps a towel around his waist while grappling for his wand atop his pile of dirty clothes, ears perked for further movement.
“Did you really think you weren’t being obvious with the stalking, Black?”
“Morgana’s saggy tits!” Sirius shrieks, turning around and almost slipping on the wet tiles. “What the fuck are you doing, sneaking up on me like that?”
The bizarre sight of Hermione Granger sitting primly on the bench facing the shower stalls greets him. She has her legs crossed at the ankles, showing miles and miles of smooth skin that Sirius pretends not to notice, her shoulders relaxed, eyes sweeping over him from head to toe.
He thinks he sees a flash of heat behind them, her gaze lingering on the divots of his hips exposed by his towel and the droplets of water running down his chest, but it’s gone so fast he starts doubting he’s seen it at all.
“Oh, relax, Black,” the Ravenclaw girl – murderer, Sirius mentally reminds himself – says with a roll of her eyes. “I’m not here to kill you. Or Obliviate you, for that matter.”
Sirius’ grip on his wand doesn’t waver. “First of all, it’s Sirius, not Black,” he replies. “Second, that’s good to know. And third, what the actual fuck?”
Granger sighs as though he’s greatly inconvenienced her and tosses him his spare set of clothes, silently ordering him to change with an imperious wave of her hand.
“Sirius, then.” The way his name rolls off her tongue makes him shiver for reasons unknown. “Sorry for the attempted obliviation. It’s nothing personal. Let’s just let bygones be bygones and leave it at that, yeah?”
Sirius’ eyes widen in anger. “Listen here, you little harpy, if you think I’ll keep quiet about this, you have another thing coming –”
Granger goes on like she didn’t even hear him speak. “I mean, it’s probably best that you don’t mention the whole murder thing,” she babbles. “In return, I promise not to tell the Headmaster and the Ministry that you’re an unregistered Animagus.”
The rant dies in Sirius’ throat. For a time, he allows himself to stew in fear, but then inevitably, his heart catches up to his brain, and all of a sudden, he feels furious. “Are you seriously blackmailing me right now?”
Granger shrugs, unbothered by the dangerous glint in Sirius’ eye. “Mutually beneficial silence has a nicer ring to it,” she suggests.
“The fuck it does,” Sirius exclaims, stepping closer to her, wand pointed straight at her chest. “Tell me. Who are you, really?”
Granger opens her mouth to speak, but Sirius isn’t done yet. Not by a long mile. He grabs her by the shoulders with the kind of grip he normally reserves for Slytherin bullies or intense hookups and continues, “Don’t give me some bullshit excuse about a quiet life in America or whatever the fuck sob story you told Dumbledore or your housemates. Both of us know you’re about as harmless as a Peruvian Vipertooth.”
He leans closer to her, noticing that he can now see the individual flecks of gold interspersed with the brown in her wide, expressive eyes, and repeats his question, “Who are you?”
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Granger whispers back, defiant and stubborn until the end. Sirius wants to shake her or fuck her or both. Anything to make her surrender. He’s so tired of carrying the weight of her secret on his shoulders.
His last year at Hogwarts isn’t supposed to be like this at all.
“I’m not evil and I don’t plan on killing anyone here at school. That’s all you need to know,” Granger declares before pushing him away and putting an ocean of distance between them. A small part of him feels strangely bereft at the loss of contact.
Sirius searches her face for any hint of deceit, but he doesn’t trust himself enough yet to figure out her tells. “Don’t I at least deserve to know the truth?” he demands.
Granger shakes her head at him. “Not everyone gets what they deserve,” she tells him. “Don’t you already know that, Sirius?”
And then she’s gone before Sirius has enough wits to detain her and demand more answers.
The days pass uneventfully but Sirius remains haunted by the enigma that is Hermione Granger.
So he decides to switch strategies.
When trying his best not to get caught staring at her in class or across the Great Hall in an attempt to gauge whether or not she’d killed someone that day doesn’t work, he takes to blatantly following her around like an overeager puppy.
His fan club mourns the sudden shift of attention, but Sirius can’t bring himself to care. Besides, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing the subtle twitching of Granger’s eyebrow every time Sirius does something mildly obnoxious, like partnering up with her in every one of their shared classes or pretending to study next to her while Madam Pince disapprovingly watches on.
“Granger, just give in to this poor sod already and have pity on us, please,” James, who had never been on friendly terms with Granger until Sirius began his crusade against her, wheedles. “We’re the ones who have to put up with Sirius’ obsessive plotting every night. I can’t even remember the last time I got proper sleep.”
Sirius scoffs and is on the verge of reminding his best friend of all the times they’d stayed up late listening to him wax lyrical about Evans and the many imaginary children they’d have, but then Granger elbows him sharply on the ribs, stealing the breath out of him, and he bites back a wince.
“You’re incorrigible, Sirius Black,” she hisses, her left eyebrow doing that twitchy thing he has grown to adore so much. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“No can do, sweetheart,” Sirius whispers with a smarmy grin. “Not until you tell me who your next target is.”
Granger rolls her eyes and huffs. “For the last time, I am not an assassin,” she denies in a voice meant for Sirius’ ears only.
Sirius’ latest theory, after having spent many sleepless nights tracking the little Ravenclaw witch’s every moment on the Map, is that she’s a secret agent sent by the American government to get rid of the Dark Lord and his followers.
It certainly makes more sense than his previous theory, the one where he thinks she’s only interested in ending Voldemort so that she could take over and rule the world ala Grindelwald.
Granger’s smarter than the rest of them combined, Evan’s pride be damned, and clearly battle-trained. He’s seen her punch a sixth year Slytherin once for calling a Hufflepuff a Mudblood when she thought there were no eye witnesses around, failing to notice a dumbstruck Sirius hidden underneath James’ cloak. That seems proof enough that she doesn’t subscribe to blood purity, hence, why he can’t really see her being one of Voldemort’s minions.
That doesn’t mean Sirius trusts her now, though. She may have made it to the top three of his Hogwarts list, an impressive feat considering Arianne Pennyfeather had solidly occupied that spot for the past four years without fail, but the girl still has her secrets. And until Sirius succeeds in questioning her using either Veritaserum or Legilimency, he’d be wise never to let his guard down when around her.
But flirting… Sirius figures that flirting is still allowed.
“Go out with me to Hogsmeade this Saturday?” he asks her, tugging on a loose curl while his other arm rests on the back of her chair. Behind him, he could hear James and the rest of his friends making bets as to how many times he could get Granger to say the word No.
Predictably, Granger inches away from him and sighs in annoyance. “No, thank you. I’d rather drink botched Polyjuice potion,” she retorts.
Sirius raises his eyebrow. “That’s… oddly specific,” he says, intrigued.
For the first time since becoming acquainted with her, Sirius sees her blush. It’s an astonishing sight, filling Sirius’ heart with a rush comparable to that of successfully performing a Tailrek twirl, and he immediately sets about planning on how to make her do it again.
“No, no. I am not talking to you about this,” Granger mumbles, still looking adorably pink and like she regrets slipping up in front of him.
“Fine, then. You can save the story for when we’re at Hogsmeade,” Sirius replies with a flirtatious wink.
“How many times must I tell you no, Sirius?”
“For as many times until you eventually say yes,” Sirius says optimistically.
“You’ll be waiting an awfully long time, then, because I’ll always say no,” Granger fires back.
On the opposite side of the table, Peter leaps off his chair and crows, “Ha! That’s five Nos. I win!”
“No, you don’t. That third one doesn’t count!” James argues.
At his friends’ loud mutterings, Granger shoots Sirius a look, one palm pressed to her forehead. “I hate you and your stupid friends,” she tells him, but Sirius sees a glimpse of the smile she’s trying to hide.
“You weren’t at Ancient Runes and Arithmancy today,” Sirius says by way of greeting.
To his disappointment, Granger barely even reacts to him sneaking up on her from behind. “And how would you know that, Sirius?” she asks him pointedly. “You don’t take Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.”
Sirius smiles mischievously at her. “I have my sources,” he boasts.
“You mean you begged Lupin to spy on me,” Granger correctly guesses, swatting away Sirius’ hand as he tries to tug on one of her ringlets, a habit that is becoming harder and harder to resist the longer he tries to insert himself into the strange Ravenclaw’s life.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Sirius replies. He levels her with an expectant look. “So? What has you skipping classes this morning? Where were you?”
“None of your business,” Granger replies, sidestepping him and lengthening her strides in an effort to get away from him. Considering she’s just shy of five foot four, Sirius thinks it rather amusing.
He bends until the tip of his nose reaches her neck and takes a loud sniff, ignoring her outraged grumbles. His eyes narrow in accusation. “You smell like smoke. Why is that?” he presses, scanning her body for any telltale hints of an injury. She appears unharmed.
Granger’s cinnamon-coloured eyes flash in return. Her wand hand twitches, and for a horrible moment, Sirius thinks he’s about to be subjected once more to an attempted Obliviate. “You know,” she says in a deceptively offhand voice. “All these questions make me realise that I haven’t told anyone about your status as an illegal Animagus yet. Would you like me to change my mind? I heard Professor Locke’s husband is an Auror.”
Sirius growls at the reminder of his secret. True to her word, Granger has kept mum about his transformation. Until now. It seems he was right to worry about her changing her mind, after all. “You can’t blackmail me forever, you know. And sooner or later, I’ll find out what you’re hiding,” he vows.
“Maybe so. But a deal’s a deal, Sirius,” Granger reminds him. “You don’t tell on me and I won’t tell on you and your friends.”
At those last words, Sirius swears he could feel his heart stop for a second. “My friends?” he tries to inject every bit of nonchalance into his voice, but the split second of fear he’d allowed to show on his face is enough to give him away.
Granger smiles, and this time when she does it, it makes her look like the predator Sirius once likened her to. It doesn’t suit her as much as it makes her look attractive as hell. “What?” she asks, the innocent fluttering of her lashes completely at odds with her smile. “Did you really expect me to believe that you left your friends out of your quest to become an Animagus? You and your Gryffindor mates are practically attached at the hip.”
“You – you have no proof!” Sirius splutters.
“I don’t need proof to damage you,” Granger tells him with a shrug. “But luckily for you, I just want to coexist peacefully with you until graduation.”
The thought of all the Marauders sharing adjacent cells in Azkaban is enough to give Sirius pause. He hasn’t given up on Granger and her secrets, but he’s played enough Wizarding chess to know when it’s time to call a draw. He’ll back away. For now.
“Fine,” he eventually spits out. “Have it your way.”
Granger sends him one last victorious smile before shouldering past him.
“Wait,” Sirius calls out, making Granger stop in her tracks. “Just tell me this… Should I be looking out for someone in tomorrow’s obituary section of the Prophet?”
At that, Granger laughs.
And though she doesn’t answer him, he finds out about it soon enough.
The next day’s Prophet makes no mention of a recent death, but right there on the front page is a moving picture of Lestrange Manor being engulfed in unnatural looking flames. No casualties were declared, but the report made mention of all family members, including his batshit cousin Bella, being sent to St. Mungos for extensive burn injuries.
A shiver crawls up Sirius’ spine as he finishes reading the report. Without conscious thought, his eyes stray to the Ravenclaw table.
He locks eyes with Granger. I know you did this, he tries to let her know.
She stares unflinchingly back at him, her chin held high. It’s all the answer he needs.
A sudden noise at the hidden tapestry makes Sirius pause in the act of sucking on his cigarette.
He sighs. “Wormy, if that’s you trying to scare me –”
His words die in his throat the moment he sees Granger stumbling inside, looking half-dead and disoriented. Her robes and hands are stained with blood, and though Sirius knows he ought to feel surprised by the sight, he feels anything but.
“Bloody hell, Granger,” he curses as he catches her just in time before her head hits the stone floor. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Death Eaters,” she mumbles, her arm shaking as she attempts to draw her wand from her sleeve. Sirius sincerely hopes she is not about to cast another Obliviate on him. At this point, he feels as though that threat has gotten old.
Sirius’ eyebrows shoot to his forehead. “Well,” he remarks. “I’m surprised you’re telling me that much.”
“Because I need your help,” Granger mumbles. She groans and, without so much as a by your leave, makes herself comfortable on Sirius’ lap. Her skin thrums with the taint of Dark magic, something that reminds Sirius of the various dark artefacts his family has hidden away in their ancestral home, and he can’t decide whether to push her away or interrogate her until she drops into unconsciousness.
Fortunately for Granger, Sirius’ hidden compassionate nature prevails. He shifts her so she’s laying half on his shoulder and half on his lap and mutters a basic diagnostic spell, followed by a series of healing spells he’d had to learn to do for Remus and his friends on days after the full moon.
“You’ve been brushing me off for weeks and now’s when you decide you need my help? Really?” Sirius growls, watching as the cuts on Granger’s skin start to heal one by one.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a shitty bedside manner, Black?” Granger mumbles, wincing at every swipe of Sirius’ wand against her skin.
“Ouch,” Sirius can’t help but tease her, the knot of tension on his shoulders easing now that Granger no longer looks like death warmed over. “You only call me by my surname when you’re upset with me. Which, I think, is highly unjustified this time, considering that I just saved your life. A little gratitude would be nice.”
“Thank you. Now shut up and nurse me back to health,” Granger forces the words out like she’s tasted something bitter and motions for Sirius to grab the well-worn beaded bag that she carries around with her everywhere. “There’s Blood Replenishing potion in there. Please get me two. Then a Purifying solution. It’s the white one, right next to the Calming Draughts.”
It is on the tip of Sirius’ tongue to protest that there’s no way her tiny bag could fit several vials of potions in there, but at Granger’s pointed look, he obediently does as asked. His mouth drops open as he finds himself elbow deep in her stuff, and when his fingers brush what feels like the handle of a broom followed by a shrunken tent, he finally realises that the witch has magicked her bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm. An illegal Undetectable Extension Charm. She could be served jail time if someone were to report her. Unbelievably, it is this that makes Sirius’ esteem of her rise further than any flash of her forbidden skin could ever hope to do.
James would call him hopeless, he knows. And he’d be quite right to say so.
He watches Granger swallow each potion dutifully, her head thrown back and her face contorting with disgust. After a few seconds, he notices her eyes start to clear, the colour quickly coming back to her cheeks. He inwardly heaves a sigh of relief.
“The price of me helping you is the truth,” Sirius says, trying to appear stern and Remus-like in his demands.
Granger shrugs, her relaxed demeanour either a result of waning adrenaline or a side effect of the combination of potions she’d taken. “Fine,” she concedes. “I was out there battling Death Eaters.”
Hardly daring to believe his luck, Sirius presses on, “Where? And why?”
“Wiltshire. Malfoy Manor, to be precise,” Granger admits. “And I would’ve thought the why would be obvious. I’m bringing down Voldemort, of course.”
Sirius blinks, both at her unexpected confession and her audacity to say You Know Who’s name without stuttering. He’d only ever heard Dumbledore and James’ parents address the dark wizard as such. Everyone else has been scared shitless to say his name. But then the last part of her sentence finally registers with him, and he can’t help but exclaim, “Ha! I was right about that, then!”
“No, you weren’t,” Granger corrects him in that swotty tone of hers that he has, inexplicably and with no rhyme or reason, began to love. “Your first theory was that I was a Death Eater.”
“And how in Godric’s name would you know that?”
“You were staring at my left forearm a little too hard to be considered normal,” Granger smugly tells him.
“Well, that’s because – I only –”
“Shall I move on with your other theory that I was planning to usurp Voldemort as top Dark Wizard of the Year?”
Sirius’ face turns red. “Err, best not.”
“I thought so.”
“So?” Sirius prompts when it appears like Granger is just content to stay silent and use him as a human crutch. “Are you part of the Order of the Phoenix then? Sent undercover here by Dumbledore?”
Granger snorts. “Hardly,” she replies. “I’m a solo agent. So don’t you dare tell Dumbledore. I mean it. He can’t know.”
“Wait, you’re not?” Sirius stares at her, gob smacked. “If you’re not one of Dumbledore’s, then do you mean to tell me you’re… MACUSA? They sent a single spy to infiltrate You Know Who’s camp –”
“God, Sirius, if you continue being this obtuse, you’ll make me regret telling you everything,” Granger complains.
“Everything? You’ve barely told me anything!” Sirius protests. “If anything, you’ve given me even more questions than answers –”
“I’m telling you what you need to know so you’ll stop pestering me and let me get on with my mission,” Granger interrupts him, glaring at him as though she blames him for making her spill all of her secrets.
“Mission? So the MACUSA thing is real then?”
Granger sighs, annoyed. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. How could I even be part of MACUSA? I’m only eighteen,” she exclaims. For someone who has just been recently injured, her death glare has not lost any of its intensity. Ten points to Ravenclaw. “So to state the obvious, it’s just me.”
“Against an army of Death Eaters? And Voldemort?” Sirius stares dubiously at her.
“What can I say? I’m a gifted witch.”
Sirius can tell that she believes it too. Granger isn’t one for false bravados. How he knows this about her, he can’t say. But fuck it if he doesn’t find it remotely enticing. He has always had a thing for confident witches. And nothing says confidence better than a girl who’s single-handedly attempting to kill a dark lord while juggling schoolwork.
Fuck it, Sirius thinks again as he ignores all the alarm bells ringing in his head. He grabs Granger by the neck, mindful of any lingering injuries, hand fisted in her voluminous curls, and tips her chin up for a kiss.
The moment his lips touches hers, Sirius knows he’s a goner. He sinks into it, the sensation of stars exploding beneath his closed eyelids fueling the moment, and when it’s clear that Granger isn’t in the right frame of mind to push him away, he deepens the kiss, his chest rumbling as she finally kisses him back, the tip of her tongue tracing the seam of his lips.
It’s pleasure like he’s never known before, and in between ghosting a thumb against her cheek and his other hand roaming freely on the dip of her waist, he thinks that if this is what kissing her does to him, he can hardly begin to imagine how he’d feel if he actually gets the opportunity to shag her tonight.
As though jinxed by his lustful thoughts, Granger regains what little is left of her sanity and pushes him away. “No, wait,” she protests, weakly pushing him away even as Sirius’ lips trail a path from her neck down to her collarbone. “This is so wrong. We can’t, Sirius –”
Sirius growls, undeterred. “Are you secretly an old hag Polyjuiced as a teenager?”
Granger scoffs. “What? No, of course not –”
“Then are you a bigot? A married woman? Or do you have some sort of horrible disfigurement that would prevent you from properly shagging a bloke?”
“No –”
“Then shut up and let me snog you in peace, you silly witch.”
Sirius manages to steal a few open-mouthed kisses before Granger’s brain starts overworking again. “No, really, you don’t understand,” she starts, her lips brushing against his every time she speaks. “God, I can’t even tell you why, but this is a horrible, horrible idea –”
“Darling, the best ideas usually are,” Sirius says right before bending down for a kiss and shutting her up once more.
Kissing Hermione Granger, it turns out, is infinitely better than stalking her.
Sirius has yet to convince her to let him shag her, but she has a habit of getting down on her knees for him just as much as he likes to do the same thing to her, so he figures he could be generous enough to forgive her for her transgressions. Besides, he’s confident it won’t be long before he could get Hermione to change her mind.
“You’re calling her Hermione now?” James crows with delight upon hearing the news.
“Naturally,” Sirius replies with a smug smile. “Doesn’t seem fair to call her by her last name when we’ve –” At the slightest twitching of Hermione’s wand hand, Sirius blanches and decides it would be in his best interests to keep his mouth shut.
“When you’ve what?” Peter asks, not bearing to be left out on all the gossip.
“When we’ve established such a lovely truce, that’s what,” Sirius finishes lamely, only slightly relaxing when he sees Hermione’s hand go back to flipping through the pages of her book.
“Ugh. Boring,” James pronounces with a groan.
Beside him, Remus is peering suspiciously at Sirius and Hermione, his werewolf senses on high alert. Sirius doesn’t have the heart to tell Hermione that Remus is onto them.
The moment they find themselves alone though, Sirius having snatched Hermione by the waist as she attempted to get back to Ravenclaw Tower after her run-in with the Marauders and subsequently smuggling her inside one of his favourite hidden alcoves, she brings up the issue all at once.
“Your friends are starting to catch onto us. We should stop this,” she tells him even as she allows him to rid her of her Ravenclaw tie followed by her shirt.
“Mm-hmm,” Sirius hums, his mouth busy mapping every inch of skin not covered by her lacy peach bra.
“No, really. I’m serious,” Hermione protests, her grip on his hair tightening with each swirl of Sirius’ tongue on her cloth-covered nipple.
“No, love. I’m Sirius,” Sirius pauses just long enough to say, smiling winsomely at her.
Hermione groans, not in the way he likes best, and pushes her hands against his chest. “Okay, now you’ve just killed the mood,” she gripes.
“Oh, c’mon,” Sirius coaxes her with a chuckle, greedy hands pulling her by the waist and lifting her against the wall so she’d have no choice but to wrap her legs around his hips to keep herself from falling. “That one’s always a classic.”
“I’m telling you, it isn’t,” Hermione insists. She makes a delightful little sound as Sirius grounds his hips harshly against hers, pressing on that tight spot that he’s begun to know all too well and continues, “But wait, don’t change the subject. I’m telling you, we have got to stop. This is the last time, okay?”
“Not okay,” Sirius grunts, burying his face against the crook of her neck.
“Why is it that you want me anyway?” Hermione asks in between guilty moans. “Is it because of the amount of times I’ve rejected you? Or have you forgotten that you’ve seen me trying to get rid of dead bodies and that I’ve admitted to murder, theft, and just a tad bit of arson?”
“That thing at the Lestranges does not count as a tad bit of arson,” Sirius points out. “But hey, as long as you’re on the Light side, I’m not particularly chuffed. Also, yeah. You might be right about the rejection. What can I say? I like difficult women.”
Hermione snakes her arm between them and pinches his nipple as punishment. “Alright, then. Maybe I’ll just have to stop being difficult then,” she muses, hand traveling down to brush against his lower abdomen.
It’s only when she starts stroking him with her clever hand while simultaneously wiggling out of her skirt and knickers that he begins to realise the implications of her last statement. Sirius stops breathing for a moment. He stares at Hermione’s warm honey-coloured eyes, willing himself to ignore how painfully hard he is, and stammers, “What? D’you mean – We’ll finally –?”
Hermione lets out a surprisingly feminine giggle upon seeing his stunned face. “Ah, well. Fuck it,” she says, and this time, Sirius grins against her skin because, hell, that has always been his line. “Might as well get it out of your system. Maybe you’ll finally leave me alone after this.”
Sirius hopes so too. As much as he likes Hermione with her feistiness and her clever retorts and all her skullduggery, she’s managed to distract him for far too long. That, and she’s dangerous and would probably get Sirius killed just by association. Besides, he’s known for dating girls with an expiry date in mind. It wouldn’t do to lend credence to the rumours that he’s found himself in love at last.
A part of him believes that this won’t end well. Now that he’s partly solved the mystery surrounding Hermione, he could only hope that one of these days, his curiosity would finally run its course.
So yes, maybe he’ll give himself a few weeks with her. A month or two at the most. Hermione would probably thank him, in the end.
Sirius is screwed. Utterly and completely screwed.
He makes the mistake of saying this out loud in front of his friends and now has to put up with their inane questions, incessant prodding, and, in the case of a grumpy Remus, growled threats.
“It’s Granger, isn’t it?” James correctly deduces with a shit-eating grin. “Has she finally located her single remaining brain cell and decided that she’d be better off not shagging you in empty cupboards?”
“Excuse me,” Sirius snaps, drawn out of his unfortunate predicament if only for a moment. “We prefer the Prefect’s Bath, thank you very much.”
Remus grouchily looks at him. “For fuck’s sake, Padfoot,” he complains. “You’re not even a Prefect.”
“And we did not need to know that,” James quickly adds, sending him a disgusted glare.
“If you’re still shagging regularly,” Peter pipes in. “Then what’s the problem?”
Sirius runs his hands through his hair and lets out a frustrated whine. “Well, that’s just it!”
His friends trade confused glances with each other. “I don’t get it,” Peter says.
“Me neither.”
“Say it again, Pads. In simpler terms, this time.”
Sirius squeezes his eyes shut and wills the growing pain in his temples to go away. “The problem is that I can’t stop shagging her!” he eventually yells.
There is silence. Then several groans and exasperated sighs punctuated by what must be Remus’ patented eye roll.
“How is that a problem?” James demands with a frown. “Mate, I can’t even get Evans to snog me without looking like she wants to retch. Do you know how much I’d give for a –”
“I thought you liked Granger,” Peter interrupts. “I mean, she’s quiet and bookish, yeah. But she has a fine pair of tits. And those legs! If you’ve grown bored with her, you can always talk me up to her, you know –”
“You’ve been making cow eyes at her before she’s even given you the time of day,” Remus reminds him. “What seems to be the problem now?”
“Oh no. Is she horrible in bed?” Peter guesses, eyes widening. “Is that it?”
“No!” Sirius exclaims through gritted teeth. “She’s the best I’ve ever had!”
Technically, technique-wise, Sirius has ranked her third, right behind Marlene McKinnon and Laureen Goldstein. Despite that, he wasn’t lying when he told his mates that she was his best. That’s because out of all the women he’d hooked up with in the past, she’s the one he has the most chemistry with.
Sirius can’t explain it, but whenever he’s buried deep inside her, letting her mark him with her nails and leaving crescent, red marks on his back, he feels as though the universe has finally aligned. He feels as bright as his namesake, each encounter with her making his heart expand further and further like a star about to reach its zenith, and when it does, he’d implode and the world as he knows it would never be the same again.
Hermione started this whole thing hoping that he’d get her out of his system someday, but Sirius is beginning to believe that that day would never come.
It’s been months since their first tryst and Sirius has yet to let her go. She still continues to sneak off in the dead of night to fight evil or whatever it is she’s vowed to do – Sirius has yet to get her to disclose how she’s planning to rid the world of the greatest dark wizard they’d seen since Grindelwald – while remaining conspicuously average and ignored in all her classes, and though not a day goes by without her reminding him of how inherently wrong it is for them to be intimate in this way, she has yet to resist him in the end.
She’s perfect for him, Sirius realises, in all the ways that matter. By all rights, he should’ve been turned off by her swottiness. But watching her nibble her lip as she studies or the absentminded way she twirls her quill while she’s deep in thought has become as endearing to him as her breathy sighs when he’s licking a path up her slit or the perky way her breasts bounce as he pounds into her from above.
These things scare him. He’s never felt this way before about someone. He can’t afford to, not when Hermione is just one step away from dying because, really, how much luck could one teenage girl have while on a solo mission to kill the Dark Lord? As she still refuses to accept his help even though he’s offered numerous times, he can’t see her succeeding without causing undue damage to herself and, oh god, what if she dies the next time she leaves the castle and he won’t even find out until it’s too late?
Sirius finds himself struggling to breathe at the thought of her dying.
It’s an alarming thought that makes him even more determined to excise her out of his life, if only he could muster enough bollocks to do so. But the harder he resists, the deeper he falls.
What an inconvenient time for his heart to start paining him so.
“You know, I’m finding it really hard to muster enough sympathy for you,” Remus tells him irritably, his patience at an all-time low due to the approaching full moon. “If you like her so much, then just fucking be with her. Why do you always have to be so dramatic?”
“Yeah. Granger’s a great girl,” Peter reiterates.
A great girl who maims Death Eaters in her spare time, Sirius thinks glumly to himself. Outwardly though, he only sighs. “I’ve never been with a girl this long before,” he whines.
James barks out a laugh. “There’s always a first time for everything,” he says, smiling amusedly at him and shrugging. “Eh. You’ll get over it soon.”
Sirius does not, in fact, get over it.
The days pass by, and in between studying for their NEWTS, Sirius and Hermione exhaust every known sexual position known to mankind. If asked, Sirius would be hard pressed to think of a place in the castle, with the exception of Dumbledore’s office, that they haven’t defiled yet.
Hermione continues to risk her life every fortnight or so, but the longer they shag, the more Sirius worries for her, until finally, one day, he snaps.
“I swear to Godric, if you don’t let me help you next time, I am going to Dumbledore. Fuck your blackmail,” Sirius bluffs, his heart still not recovering from seeing Hermione with strange burns on her hands and that ever present whiff of dark magic.
Hermione leans her head on his shoulder, watching him rub dittany on her palms with uncharacteristic gentleness. “Well, that’s convenient then. Because for my next mission, I’m really going to need your help,” she admits.
Sirius’ eyes widen. “What? Really?” he exclaims. “Wait, you’re not just having me on, are you?”
Hermione waves a hand over her face. “Do I look like I’m happy to ask for your help? No. But I need to do it anyway. The fate of the Wizarding World rests on it.”
“Ugh.” Sirius grimaces. “I hate it when you get all superhero-y on me.”
“Superhero-y is –”
“Not a word. Yes, yes, I know,” Sirius finishes for her, too distracted to stress over the fact that he can now finish her sentences with barely any effort at all. He grabs her other hand and starts the process of smearing healing paste on it all over again. “So? When’s the big day, then? Anything I need to know? Do I need to bring dragonhide armour? I could probably get away by saying we’re sneaking out of Hogwarts to find new places to shag so my friends won’t get suspicious. I mean, that’s certainly true, so Remus probably won’t be able to sniff out a lie, but –”
“Sirius, you’re not coming with me on the next mission,” Hermione informs him, cutting off any fantasies Sirius might have of battling evil wizards and going out in a blaze of glory, just like in those faery tales he and Reggie used to like reading so much when they were kids.
“Excuse me?” Sirius looks at Hermione, affronted. “But you just asked for my help!”
“I did, yeah,” Hermione replies with a shrug. “But I said nothing about you going with me.”
In this moment, Sirius is reminded that sometimes, just sometimes, he fucking hates Hermione. “And why the fuck not?”
“I can’t do my job properly if you’re there,” Hermione responds irritably, her gaze stuck on the wooden floorboards in the room they’ve been hiding in. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re the only person here I trust to have my back in a fight. But nothing is more important to me than your safety, Sirius. If you come with me, I’d worry too much about you getting hurt that I’d be rendered useless. Then, we’ll both be killed.”
Something strange trickles down Sirius’ chest at her admission. His earlier anger vanishes, and that’s when he remembers that as much as he hates Hermione sometimes, he loves – no, likes – her twice as much. “But when you’re out there doing these dangerous missions, I worry,” he whispers into her hair.
Hermione reaches for his hand, heedless of the sticky residue on her palm, and squeezes. “I know,” she tells him softly. “But the end is near, you know. What I’m doing… I’m almost done. Just one more mission to go and then I can go ahead and kill Lord Snakeface.”
Sirius snorts. “Lord Snakeface?”
“That’s what I call Voldemort in my head sometimes. It’s a long story. Don’t judge me,” Hermione mumbles, blushing fiercely much to Sirius’ eternal delight.
Sirius wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to his chest. “If you don’t want me to come with you, then how do you expect me to help you?”
“About that…”
Sirius should’ve left the matter alone upon seeing Hermione hesitate. Whatever has brought apprehension to her eyes could not be anything good, but as always, Sirius has to poke and prod at things until they either explode or disintegrate. “What?” he asks her.
“I need you to get your brother into a meeting with me.”
Sirius feels his heartbeat stutter to a crawl. “You need me to WHAT?” he half-shouts. Then to Hermione’s surprise, he barks out a laugh. “I’m sorry, but it sounded like you just asked me to talk to my brother, my bigoted, arsehole of a brother who’s disowned me along with my parents and who I haven’t spoken to for over a year.”
Hermione strokes her thumb over his knuckles in a way she’s learned would calm him. “I know it sounds absurd, but without your brother, I can’t kill Voldemort,” she tells him.
“You’re fucking joking.” A muscle ticks on Sirius’ jaw. “Have you forgotten the part where I told you that my brother’s a fucking pureblood fanatic? In case you need me to spell it out for you, that means he’s probably been branded as a Death Eater already.”
“Yes. I got that.”
Sirius stares disbelievingly at her. “And you expect Reggie to, what? Help you kill his boss?”
“He’ll do it,” Hermione states with more conviction than Sirius could ever hope for. “But first I’ll need to talk to him.”
“He doesn’t associate with Muggleborns,” Sirius reminds her. “Especially if it’s me who’s doing the asking.”
Hermione presses a kiss to his breastbone. “Of course he will,” she says matter-of-factly. “He misses you. He’s not going to pass up this opportunity to talk to you.”
Sirius laughs bitterly. “And how do you know that?” he scoffs. “You took one look at him lording it over at the Slytherin table and deduced that on your own, just like that?”
Hermione curls her lips softly into a smile. “You should know better by now than to doubt me, Sirius Black,” she tells him.
Sirius stays silent for a while and hugs her closer to him, relishing in the warmth of her body and softness of her curves pressed against his side. He thinks of Reggie at age seven, crawling underneath his bedcovers and seeking comfort after a thunderstorm; then at age ten, squeezing their bloodstained palms together and vowing that they’d always be there for each other even though Sirius is about to go off to Hogwarts without him; and finally, at age fifteen, looking down at him with eyes full of steel, doing nothing while their parents toss Sirius’ belongings to the curb and pronounce him dead to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.
He thinks of his brother and his chest aches with fierce longing. Despite his faults, he does miss him. And if there’s even the sliver of chance that Reggie might still listen to him, he’ll take it. For the little boy he’d once sworn to protect and cherish forever, he’d set aside his pride one last time.
“Okay, fine,” he finally breathes out before he has a chance to change his mind. “I’ll talk to him. But if this fails spectacularly, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”
Hermione laughs and exhales a sigh of relief. “Deal.”
She spends the rest of their night showing him just how grateful she is.
It takes Sirius six days before he’s able to muster enough courage to send Regulus a note asking him to meet him at the Shrieking Shack tomorrow.
To his eternal astonishment, it only takes his brother just shy of an hour to send back a reply.
1pm. You better not bring your stupid friends.
Sirius’ heart jolts upon reading it, hardly daring to believe the contents of his letter. Something that feels suspiciously like hope and longing slithers past the hardened muscles of his heart, and he passes the time until their Hogsmeade trip pacing back and forth in his dorm and grumbling to Hermione about the futility of their upcoming meeting.
For a guy who only took seconds to be Sorted into Gryffindor, he isn’t proud to know he’s feeling scared over the possibility of his brother rejecting him once again. Never mind the fact that his meeting is actually about Hermione and her insane mission to save the world.
He still fails to see how contacting Regulus would help with that, but if Hermione says otherwise, then who is he to contradict her?
In between shagging in empty classrooms and witnessing her ability to assassinate members of Voldemort’s army while managing an average grade in all her classes, Sirius has grown to trust her.
He would walk with her to the depths of Hell if she asks him to.
Well, if this isn’t Hell, then I don’t know what is, Sirius thinks to himself as he walks alongside her to the Shack on the aforementioned day, all the while muttering that Hermione better reward him again for his efforts if they ever manage to get back to the castle in one piece.
When they arrive at the Shack, they find Regulus trying and failing to Scourgify years’ worth of dust and grime that had accumulated on the shabby furniture and floorboards, his nose pinching in a way that reminds Sirius of his cousin Cissy.
The disgust on his face, however, pales in comparison to the way he reacts when he sees that Sirius did not come alone.
Regulus takes one look at Sirius, then at Hermione, and finally at the possessive hand Sirius has placed on her back, and visibly recoils.
“No.”
The word is said with such finality and contempt that Sirius is half-tempted to send his brother a Stinging Hex for being such a brat. “No?” he asks with a raised eyebrow. “Hello to you too, Reggie.”
“Oh, fuck you, Siri. Of course it’s a no,” Regulus says, barely sparing Hermione a second glance and focusing his attention on his increasingly growing irate older brother. “I am not asking Mother and Father on your behalf for one of our family heirlooms just so you can give it to some beastly-haired girl who’s practically a Muggle -”
“Wait, what?” Baffled, Sirius stares at the twin spots of red on Regulus’ cheeks and the frenzied gestures directed at him. “What are you -”
“Please tell me you didn’t get her pregnant? It’s bad enough that you’re associating with someone with her background -”
“Excuse me?”
“Mother may actually die from the shame. Have you no mercy -”
“Can hags without souls even die? If so, then she should do the world a favour -”
Their one-sided conversation is brought to a halt by Hermione shooting loud sparks at the ceiling with her wand. When she’s properly got both Black brothers’ attention, she crosses her arms over her chest and levels them with a stern look, one that makes Sirius simultaneously hard and feeling like he’s about to pee in his pants.
“Okay, hello,” she greets Regulus with none of the deference his little brother has grown used to from his Slytherin cronies. “First of all, no one is getting married -”
The thought of marriage almost has Sirius choking on his own spit. He has yet to get past the idea that Hermione is becoming, for all intents and purposes, his first real girlfriend, and now Regulus is suggesting that Sirius give up his freedom for a lifelong commitment? It’s like he doesn’t know Sirius at all.
“Second of all, though your brother has a breeding kink, I am not pregnant and will not be any time soon, not if I can help it,” Hermione continues on, oblivious to the internal crisis swirling inside Sirius’ head at her words.
Regulus, meanwhile, looks like he’s about five seconds away from hurling his lunch.
“And lastly,” Hermione looks at Regulus dead in the eye as she says this, “We’re here because we need your help.”
“I can’t believe you wasted my time for this,” Regulus complains with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not interested in a threesome with you and my loathesome brother.”
“Ha! As if I’m ever sharing Hermione with you,” Sirius snaps back, unconsciously moving closer to her in an effort to shield her from the force of Regulus’ scorching gaze, marriage objections be damned. “She’s mine.”
Hermione makes a noise between a sigh and a growl, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “why are Blacks such bird-brained arseholes”.
To Regulus, she says, “I was talking more along the lines of you helping me take down Voldemort, but sure, let’s revisit your vivid and demented imagination later.”
Regulus flinches upon hearing her use the Dark Lord’s name and stares frozen at her, as though expecting her to be struck by lightning for saying his name out loud.
“I’ve been watching you, Regulus Black,” Hermione tells him softly, her face turning unusually grave. “I know you no longer believe in his cause. I know how much you’re suffering, doing things you no longer want to do for a madman who punishes you for the slightest mistake. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can help us get rid of him. I know it in my bones.”
Regulus scoffs, unimpressed. “Who are you, Dumbledore Junior?”
Hermione barely reacts to the insult, her lips pressed in a neutral frown. “I know you don’t trust me,” she admits with a shrug. “But you trust Sirius, don’t you?”
“Sirius, the same person who abandoned me to my parents to suffer in his place? That Sirius?” Regulus snarls, his eyes a raging storm threatening to drown Sirius in his guilt.
“I - Reggie -”
Something in Sirius’ chest seizes as he tried to force words out of his mouth.
All this time, he’d thought that Regulus had been spending these last few years basking in their parents’ praises and willingly allowing himself to be moulded into becoming someone hateful and completely unrecognisable. But in reality, he is little more than a lamb, a sacrifice that Sirius had unknowingly made the moment he said fuck all to his family’s Pureblood beliefs and left Grimmauld Place for the safety of Potter Manor.
No wonder Regulus hates him so much.
“Would you have gone with him, back then?” Hermione, scourge to all Death Eaters, staunch defender of Sirius Black, and incidentally, the light of his life, says. “If he had asked you to come with him, would you have had the courage to say yes? I’m not talking about right now. But back then, when you haven’t witnessed what having his mark would truly do to you? Would you?”
Regulus is cowed into silence.
Hermione hums. “Thought so.”
Sirius wants to tell Hermione that although he’s grateful for her support, he knows that no words would ever be enough to change his brother’s mind. Not now, when every painful word that comes out of Regulus’ mouth is a stark reminder of how spectacularly Sirius has failed him.
But then Regulus sighs, and against all hope, he says to Hermione, “Start talking.”
“I don’t like this.”
Hermione shares an exaggerated look with Regulus, who for his part, has rapidly progressed from hating her very existence to thinking that perhaps she isn’t all that bad, all things considered. Offering him a way out from glorified slavery does have a way of changing one’s mind.
“Yes, I’m aware,” she tells Sirius. “You’ve made your opinion clear enough for the past week.”
Regulus smirks at Sirius. “Scared Granger is going to realise she’s with the wrong Black and run off with me into the sunset once we finish our mission?” he taunts him.
Sirius pauses from his frantic pacing and glares at his brother. After they’d talked business at the Shack, Hermione had left them to themselves, and the reunion that followed had been anything but awkward. But several days of planning later and both Black brothers have now become comfortable enough to loudly insult one another, each knowing precisely the right words to make the other tick.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Reggie, but my girl is intelligent enough not to let go of a good thing when she has one,” Sirius snarks back.
“I hate to interrupt your pissing contest, but your girl,” Hermione pronounces this last statement with an eye roll, “is ready to go now. The destruction of Lord Snakeface awaits.”
Regulus chokes out a laugh at the moniker, torn between horror and incredulity at her nerve. Sirius, however, has managed to work himself into such a panicked state that he could neither register nor appreciate the pains Hermione had taken just to bring some levity to the situation.
He crosses the meagre distance between them and wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her to him so that they are pressed chest to chest, his rapid breathing tempered by the steady beat of her heart.
“Please be careful,” he murmurs, his grip on her tightening as he attempts to meld his body to hers. He wishes he could go with them, wishes that Hermione would forget about this entire insane operation and just let some other competent fool with a Saviour complex handle it. It isn’t fair, the fact that she and Regulus must complete this final stretch together while he’s expected to just wait for them, all the while feeling helpless and full of nerves.
“I always am,” Hermione reassures him, slotting her head under his chin and tracing circles on his back with featherlight touches.
“Well, be more careful,” Sirius insists, voice partially muffled as he presses a kiss to her hair. “I need you alive for when I’d finally have to put a ring on your finger. Maybe then Reggie will stop nagging us about the dangers of living in sin.”
Hermione pinches him on the side. Sirius doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s trying to suppress a smile. “Like I’d let you do that without waiting at least a few more years,” she mumbles. “Don’t ask me that again until you’ve found a stable job.”
“But keeping you interested in me is a full time job,” Sirius jokes, not letting on to the fact that his earlier words are a promise he intends to keep.
A week ago, the thought of committing himself to anyone, even if that someone is Hermione, the number one on his Top Ten Women to Shag Before and After Graduation list for several months running, would’ve been enough to send him packing up his bags and moving halfway across the continent.
But now... Now, the idea of permanently shackling Hermione to him is enough to make his eyes glaze over. He would get to shag her forever and call her his wife, and the possessive beast living inside his chest purrs happily at the thought. His fourteen-year-old self would be horrified.
“You two are disgusting,” Regulus spits out with a grimace, effectively snapping Sirius out of his fantasies. “I think I’d rather fight the Dark Lord without a wand than be subjected to this nauseating display for one more minute.”
“You’re just jealous no girl would shag you in McGonagall’s classroom after curfew,” Sirius can’t help but bite back, grunting at the force of Hermione’s elbow ramming into his ribcage at his smug confession.
“You’ll be lucky if I shag you again after I come back,” Hermione hisses, a pretty flush spreading to her cheeks.
“As long as you come back safely,” Sirius whispers, unable to resist one last reminder to her about her safety. He glances at Regulus over Hermione’s shoulder, a wordless plea from one brother to another.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be back before you know it. When have you ever known me to fail at something?” Hermione’s parting words to him does nothing to fill the hollow ache in his gut at the thought of her leaving.
Being disowned at the age of fourteen because he refused to allow his family to offer him up as a sacrificial lamb to the Death Eater cause had hurt Sirius something fierce, despite the jokes he made in front of his friends and James’ family. Even worse was the aftermath of Snape’s near miss attack at the Shrieking Shack back in fifth year. For close to two weeks, he almost lost hope that Remus and James would ever forgive him for the part he played in endangering his friend’s safety and precarious situation at school.
But nothing - absolutely nothing - compares to the agony of waiting for Hermione and Reggie to come back from their mission. The thought of anything happening to two of the most important people in his life is more painful than the hours he’d spent being tortured by his parents and cousin.
He’s always been a fairly optimistic person, but this time he can’t help but think of the worst.
Images of Hermione lying lifeless in Reggie’s arms while his own brother bleeds to death in front of him has him pacing the length of his dorm room until Remus loses patience with him and tosses him out, claiming that Sirius’ frantic walking is making him lose focus on his homework.
The following hours are then spent stress smoking at a hidden nook near the Astronomy Tower. When he runs out of cigarettes, he ends up back in the Room of Requirement, counting down the minutes until Hermione and Reggie are supposed to come back.
In the end, the pair of them get back to Hogwarts hours past their estimated arrival time, just when Sirius has just about convinced himself that perhaps it’s time to bring this matter up to Dumbledore even knowing that it would make Hermione mad.
“It’s about bloody time you -” Sirius’ vexed complaints are cut short at the site of Regulus’ unmoving form.
The blood rushes to his head as he runs towards them, fists clenched in an effort to disguise his shaking.
“Fuck - Is he -” Sirius stares at the limp figure that must be his brother. Both him and Hermione are soaked to the bone, the only difference being the fact that Reggie no longer looks to be part of the living. His skin is pale - too pale, even for a pureblooded twat who has been living in the dungeons for all these years, and his lips appear as blue as the Babbling potion he and his mates had nicked from Slughorn’s stores just the other day. Reggie’s black robes monogrammed with the Black insignia cling to his pallid form, and in that moment he looks so much like their Uncle Alphard just before they laid him to rest that Sirius can’t help but convulse at the thought of it.
“He’s not dying. Not today,” Hermione, who has tears in her eyes but otherwise appears unharmed, frantically digs through the contents of her beaded bag.
“What happened?” Sirius is almost afraid to ask, hands traveling to either side of his brother’s neck in desperate search of a pulse. He finds it, but the faint thrumming under his fingertips does nothing to reassure him.
Hermione chokes on a sob. “He drank the potion,” she says as she wandlessly summons one vial after another. “I was supposed to be the one to drink it - we’d both agreed on it before we entered the cave - but your stupid pest of a brother decided it was the perfect time to act like a Gryffindor. God, I fucking hate you Blacks.”
Sirius’ forehead drops down to Reggie’s chest. “You fucking brat,” he exhales. “You better wake the fuck up so I can rub this in your face. Just... fuck, Reggie. Wake up.”
Reggie does not respond. Sirius, torn between crying in earnest or allowing the earth to just swallow him whole, turns to Hermione. “He’s... he’s not waking up,” he whisper shouts. “Why the bloody hell is not waking up? Do we - do we bring him to Pomfrey? Or -”
Hermione shoves him out of the way, a determined glint in her eye replacing her earlier panicked state. “He’ll make it,” she promises him. “Nobody is dying today. Not if I can help it.”
Sirius, reduced to a pathetic mess on the floor, watches the whole thing in silent shock. Hermione works tirelessly on his brother, coaxing potions down his throat and casting spell after spell with an efficiency and precision reminiscent of one of St. Mungo’s best.
Red lights intersperse with green and white sparks in the air, and Sirius is almost grateful that the display of fireworks masks Reggie’s corpse-like form. He would never be able to forgive himself if his brother dies.
Finally, after what seems like decades, Hermione drops her wand arm. They wait with bated breath for a sign of life, anything that would ease the coil of vines tightening around Sirius’ heart, but there is nothing.
Hermione blinks back furious tears and straightens her form, all too prepared to do it all over again, to pour blood and magic into saving the one person Sirius could not bear losing aside from her. But then Reggie’s body shoots up as though electrocuted, and he rattles out a Dementor-like gasp, and in another moment, Sirius’ world tilts back to its proper axis and he feels like he can finally breathe again.
The relief and joy he feels as he pulls Reggie into a hard embrace despite his protests is enough to power a thousand Patronuses.
“You should’ve been in Gryffindor. I fucking knew it,” he tells him with a strangled laugh.
Unfortunately, their adventure is far from over. There is still the matter of killing Voldemort’s now mortal body (“What do you mean now?” Sirius had horrifyingly exclaimed. “You mean he wasn’t bloody mortal before?”), with Hermione expressing her preference to do it well before they’d have to take their NEWTS. Fucking Ravenclaw.
Sirius isn’t alone in voicing his opinion that it’s time for them to finally involve the Order. The trauma of seeing his brother on the brink of death still haunts him to this day, and he has no desire for Hermione’s fate to mirror Regulus’.
Even Regulus himself, who has warmed up to Hermione considerably after owing her a life debt for saving his sorry hide, has disapproved of the plan almost at the get go. He claims it to be suicidal and bordering on idiotic, emphasis on the word idiotic.
But there is no convincing Hermione of this. Godric knows Sirius has tried. Not even fucking the plan out of her has made a dent in her resolve.
Things escalate to the point where he and Hermione have an almighty row in the middle of the Slytherin-Hufflepuff match.
Hermione throws out a silencing spell around them, but their rigid forms and the furious way they face each other in the stands do not go unnoticed by the student body. Sirius can’t even bring himself to care when Andalus Carrow eventually catches the Snitch, which means Gryffindor will get to play against Slytherin in the finals.
But that is the least of his concerns. How can he think of the Quidditch finals as anything but a stupid match when his witch is about to go out on a suicide mission all by herself?
“How can you possibly think I’d ever be okay with this?” he snarls at her the moment they are back in his dorm room, away from the prying eyes of everyone and safe in the knowledge that his friends have sufficiently provided a distraction huge enough to help them escape.
“You’ve seen me disappear dozens of times, Sirius. This shouldn’t be any different,” Hermione argues, looking equally obstinate and furious.
“The hell it isn’t!” Sirius screams back, fighting the urge to pull out the roots of his hair. “This time you could actually get killed!”
Hermione’s face softens at the flash of fear Sirius has failed to disguise. She steps closer to him and rests one hand on his heaving chest and the other on his cheek. Her voice when she replies this time is gentle. “I promise I will come back to you, Sirius Black,” she whispers.
Sirius presses a kiss to the palm of her hand. “You can’t promise me that,” he says sadly.
“I know. But I’ll do it anyway.” Hermione melts into the space Sirius has carved out for her and only her, head slotted under his chin and arms wrapped around his back, her heart fluttering in time with his.
Sirius holds her like she is something precious, the sun around which he orbits. He has long since given up denying his feelings for her - the way the left side of his ribcage goes warm at her every touch, the way he’d recognise her by scent and touch alone even if he’d been blinded, the way he’d started having nightmares about her dying ever since she came back from Malfoy Manor.
He has tried and tried and tried to will his feelings for her to go away, to murder those damned butterflies in his stomach and to cut off every vine and root that she’d unwittingly planted in his heart, but there is no cure for it. James had tried to tell him that so many times that he had lost count.
The thought of telling Hermione all this makes him want to break out into hives - perhaps he still has a long way to go towards maturity - so he settles for showing her through action instead.
The kisses he bestows on her that night and all the nights that follow after are desperate, sweet with all the words left unsaid, a contrast to the way he clutches her skin - all greed and want and lust and fear rolled into one. This time it is him leaving scratches on her back and breasts while her thighs and hips are ringed with bruises the size of his handprints. He wishes they will be the only marks she will have on her body because the thought of her being hurt by anyone other than him is enough to feed an entire colony of Dementors.
Thrusting into her until his spine tingles with pleasure is enough to quell his anxieties, at least for a little while. And when she bites down on the tendon of his neck in that wild way that signals she is only seconds away from coming, pleas falling from her lips like moon dew on petals, her walls warm and tight and stretched to breaking point, he thinks that there is no place he’d rather be than here, his cock buried deep inside her as she welcomes him home.
Hermione arches her back off the bed and clings to him, her breathy moans a siren’s song that drives him further to the edge, and when she pulls at his hair with a kind of desperation that mirrors his, her eyes blown wide and shining like the sun, he tumbles right off the edge, her name a holy thing that passes through his lips.
Afterwards, he lays down on top of her, his face pressed to her chest, arms around her dainty waist much like the vines that wrap around his heart whenever he thinks of her. He wishes she didn’t have to fight a war all on her own, wishes that every night could be like this. Forever.
It’s the first time the word forever no longer fills him with fear.
When Sirius wakes up, the left side of his bed is empty and cold. The press of Hermione’s body against his wine red sheets, a sight he has grown accustomed to for months now, is no longer there. There’s still a whiff of her perfume - bergamot and vanilla and something he’d only ever recognised once or twice in his Amortentia - but the scent is faint, and that tells him everything he needs to know.
She left him hours ago.
Left him. Without even saying goodbye.
Something in Sirius’ chest fractures at the thought. He feels betrayed and fearful and angry all at once.
He should’ve known better, should’ve known not to expect anything from a girl who has had no qualms killing grown men in her spare time while maintaining her cover as an innocent witch, but still, against all else, he’d hoped.
He thought he’d be different, that she’d love him enough that she’d spare him the agony of not knowing precisely when she’d go and sacrifice her life for the greater good. But as Sirius tears the entire castle apart searching for her, his breath coming up in short gasps and his hands unable to stop trembling, he is reminded of the fact that Hermione does know him best.
After all, Sirius had absolutely no intentions of letting her go out alone. He’d been fully prepared to drag her in front of Dumbledore and the highly whispered about Order of the Phoenix kicking and screaming, even if she ends up hating him for it. He would gladly trade their relationship for her life. It’s not a hard choice to make.
He had even been working up the courage to ask Regulus for help.
But now she’s gone and Sirius feels like he’ll never be able to cast a Patronus ever again.
What if last night was the last time he got to hold her in his arms? What if something bad happens to her because he’s not there to protect her, the way he’d promised her he would, this time around? What if her luck finally runs out and she dies not knowing about the two-bedroom flat Sirius had purchased two months ago? What if she never sees the spare room he’d planned to convert into her personal library and he never gets to tease her and call her his little swot ever again?
Sirius sinks to his knees and sobs soundlessly.
It is Peter, of all people, who brings him the news.
He runs like the ghosts of his Muggle-hating ancestors are after him, ignoring James and Remus’ twin expressions of concern, and pushes the doors to the Hospital Wing open.
The sight that greets him when he steps inside is worse than anything he could ever conjure from a Boggart.
Hermione lies on her back surrounded by a cocoon of white sheets, a cloud of Madam Pomfrey’s telltale diagnostic charms hovering over her head. There’s blood seeping from the bandages wrapped around her head and arms, and despite the late night heat, she looks pale and barely breathing, her eyes ringed in blue shadows, lips paper white and kissed by death.
“Hermione?” Sirius cries out plaintively.
He takes a few hesitant steps towards her before his courage finds him and he runs the rest of the way to her bedside, clutching her hand in his.
Beside him, Madam Pomfrey opens her mouth as though to chastise him, but one glance at the grief-stricken look on Sirius’s face and she wisely reconsiders.
“Is... is she...?” Sirius can barely bring himself to say the words.
Icy tendrils of fear creep into his heart and Sirius feels himself go numb, barely registering Madam Pomfrey’s probing questions and the warm weight of Remus’ hand on his shoulder.
All he can think about is Hermione and the nightmare of finding her cold and lifeless before him, her eyes no longer holding that familiar spark of stubbornness.
“Will she...” he attempts once more to say through trembling lips.
The look of pity on Madam Pomfrey’s face feels like a dagger plunging straight into his heart. “We’ve done everything we can. But even then,” here she pauses, as though she herself cannot stomach the thought of failing a student, much less this one. “I truly don’t know, Mister Black. I’m sorry.”
Sirius hears a gods awful sound as though from far away - like that of a creature dying in pain - and belatedly, it takes him several seconds too long to realise that it is coming from him.
Crouching down, he leans his forehead against hers and presses a kiss to her unresponsive lips, one hand cradling her jaw with an aching tenderness that has the matron and his friends looking away from him for a moment.
“You have got to survive this, my love,” he whispers into her ear. “If Reggie did it, you can too. Right?” He looks pleadingly at her, willing her to come back to life. A tear lands on her cheek as Sirius’ grip on her hand tightens. “You can’t leave me. It’s you and me against the world, isn’t that right?”
As his voice verges on hysteria, James curls a comforting arm around his shoulder, pulling him back slightly so he wouldn’t crush her.
“She will, Pads, don’t worry,” James reassures him. “Granger is about as stubborn as you. She’ll get through this.”
Sirius clings to this last bit of hope like the dying man that he is. The thought of a world without Hermione in it is unfathomable. He won’t lose her. He’d bring her back with Dark Magic if he has to, Azkaban be damned.
News of Voldemort’s sudden demise spread throughout the country like wildfire. Despite the looming end of the year exams, it’s all the students at the castle would talk about. The mystery of who killed the Dark Lord and three fourths of his followers is about as intriguing as the manner by which he died. Photos of the charred remains of Yaxley Manor courtesy of an unknown Muggle explosive device remain plastered on the front pages of every newspaper in Wizarding Britain, and the whole world celebrated for days.
Three days, to be exact.
But Sirius could hardly bring himself to care, not for all the galleons and all the half-naked girls in bikinis in the world. He wants to punch every single schoolmate with a smile on his face, wants to silence every party thrown in honour of Voldemort’s death, because how dare they act happy and relieved at a time like this? How dare they celebrate so freely, not knowing that the person responsible for securing their freedom lay in a coma, fighting for her life the way she’d fought for every living soul in Wizarding Britain for the better part of a year, maybe even more?
Sirius’ heart seizes wildly in his chest at the reminder. The hours and seconds blend together, and still he holds on, hands cradling Hermione’s delicate, wraith-like fingers, willing his magic and his blood to keep her warm and wake her up.
“Mate, c’mon, you need to eat.” James deposits a plate of sausages and eggs on his lap, undeterred by Sirius’ animalistic growls of protest.
He is grateful for his friends, truly, for not asking him any questions. They’re far from fools, so he expects that at some point between Hermione showing up at the school half-dead and Voldemort mysteriously dying, not to mention Sirius’ previous accusations that Hermione was some kind of teenage hitman, it’s not hard to imagine them finally connecting the dots. But for them to hold their tongues and focus instead on supporting him during his time of need is a true testament to their friendship.
“If you miss another Transfiguration class, I don’t think even crying in front of Minnie would prevent her from failing you,” Peter reminds him, though his voice is soft, gaze locking onto the desperate way Sirius clings to Hermione.
“I don’t think it’s McGonagall he needs to worry about, to be honest,” Remus says, flashing Sirius a teasing smile in an effort to raise his spirits. “If Hermione finds out he’s just one class away from getting a Troll in Transfiguration, she’ll kill you herself.”
Sirius sighs. The mere mention of Hermione’s name feels like rubbing salt on an open wound, and the remaining part of his heart that stubbornly refuses to lose hope finally splinters into tiny pieces. Sirius wants to sob but there are no more tears left in him. He feels unmoored, and in a desperate fit of weakness and self-pity, he wishes he could go back to those days when he could let go of a witch with a friendly smile and zero regrets.
But deep down, he knows that Hermione isn’t just any other witch. She is his witch. For better or for worse, his heart has chosen her even before his brain and his pride could struggle to catch up with that fact. But if he failed to protect her, then does he even deserve her in the first place?
“What’s this about Sirius doing poorly in Transfiguration?”
Sirius freezes in the middle of his self-flagellating thoughts. He knows that voice. He’s been dreaming of that voice every night since he’d stubbornly made camp in the hospital wing several days ago.
Slowly, as though afraid to find out if his mind has finally snapped like the rest of his inbred ancestors, he lifts his head up. He is met with the miraculous sight of Hermione smiling up at him. She still looks weak, barely able to lift a spoon much less her wand, but those familiar honey-coloured eyes are open and sparkling with a warmth reserved just for Sirius, and just like that, all the air leaves his lungs and he feels the world around him fade away.
There is only Hermione, alive and well and looking at him with undisguised affection and relief, and when her face suddenly becomes a blur of colour, it takes him a moment to realise that he is crying.
“Hermione! God.” He says her name like a prayer. He shoots up from his chair and throws himself at her, one arm circling protectively around her waist while the other clings to the back of her neck, his forehead pressed lovingly against hers.
“I thought... I thought...” Sirius’ lips tremble. They still when Hermione gently slants her mouth over his, the sudden action sending warmth coursing through his veins. The kiss is an apology and a declaration all at once, and when they both resurface for air, Sirius is startled to notice that everything appears brighter now, the colour bleeding back into his vision as though it had never left in the first place, the gnawing ache in his chest now non-existent.
Hermione brushes the dirty locks off his face with a shaky hand and for once refrains from making a joke about Sirius’ resemblance to Snape in that moment. “I told you I’d come back to you,” she says, thumb tracing his hairline before resting on his cheekbone.
“You did, yeah,” Sirius sobs out in relief, leaning into her touch like a flower drawn to sunlight.
“But you have a nasty habit of not believing me,” Hermione teases him, watching him close his eyes, the dark circles underneath them more pronounced now than they ever were.
“I’ve grown used to people always leaving me. In the end, they always do,” Sirius admits in a whisper, eyes still closed and unaware of his friends leaving to give them some semblance of privacy.
“I thought I’d already trained that kind of negative thinking out of you.” Hermione presses butterfly kisses to each of his closed lids, then to the corners of his mouth, before softly landing on his lips. “Look at me, Sirius,” she implores him.
Sirius is powerless to do anything else except obey.
All the air leaves his lungs the moment he sees the fierce love reflected so clearly in Hermione’s eyes. They’ve never said the words out loud to each other, and Sirius has long ago contented himself with keeping his feelings locked deep in his chest, where he could tend to them in secret, but now he knows without a shadow of a doubt that he isn’t alone in this. Perhaps he never was.
“I’m only going to say this once, so you better listen closely,” Hermione whispers. Her fingers feel warm against his skin, and Sirius basks in the comfort her touch brings. “You asked me once who I was. Do you remember?”
Sirius nods. Images of Hermione confronting him in the Quidditch locker room all those months ago flood his mind. Even then, he’d been drawn to her without him even realising it.
“Well, do you know the answer to that now, Sirius?”
A laugh makes its way unbidden from his throat. “You’re the badass witch who fucking killed Voldemort,” he replies.
Hermione closes whatever distance remains between them, her lips hovering just centimetres above his. “Wrong,” she breathes out. “The only answer that matters is this: I am yours, Sirius Black, for as long as you will have me. Just as you are mine.”
The traitorous muscle in his chest seizes at her words. “Mine?” his voice is child-like, the hopeful expression on his face brittle.
“Yes. Yours,” Hermione repeats, sealing her promise with a kiss. “And I will never leave you.”
Sirius’ smile is wide and as bright as starlight. Not even Remus’ fake retching and James’ obnoxious yells for the two of them to hurry up and stop their disgusting public display of affection because it’s only making him miss Evans even more is enough to dampen his mood.
For the first time since it was announced that Voldemort was dead, Sirius feels like he can finally celebrate.
Epilogue
“What do you mean you don’t know what you’re going to do after graduation?” Evans’ expression is aghast as she stares at Hermione.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius observes the two of them with amusement, his concentration on levitating several trays containing firewhiskey shots wavering for a few seconds.
Beside him, James shakes his head and waves a stern finger in his direction, the effect muted by the red and gold confetti sprinkled on his hair, the words “Quidditch Champion” rewriting itself on his left cheek in glowing neat script. It’s a perfect match to the one scribbled on Sirius’ own right cheek, courtesy of Hermione’s brilliant spellwork. “Pads, can you please control your witch? At this rate, she’s gonna give my girl a heart attack,” he scolds him, obviously relishing the opportunity to call Evans his girl and to show off some of those Muggle expressions said girl has been teaching him.
“I can’t believe we now live in a world where Lily has finally reciprocated Prongs’ love,” Peter bemoans, sharing a glance at Remus, the only Marauder now who shares his single status.
“Now Prongs is twice as insufferable. I don’t know if I prefer pining Prongs to perfect boyfriend Prongs,” Remus agrees before taking a bite out of his chocolate frog.
“Hey!” James protests.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s preferable to whipped Sirius,” Peter muses out loud, ducking just in time to miss the hex Sirius sends his way. A good thing too, since he has been practicing Hermione’s secret Bat Bogey hex, much to her consternation.
“You’re just jealous that I bagged the hottest girl in all of Britain,” Sirius says snootily.
“Just Britain?” Remus raises an eyebrow and shoots him a teasing grin. “Don’t let Hermione hear you say that.”
“I think Lily will kill her long before she could kill Sirius,” Peter says, nudging them both so that they could bear witness to the spectacle that is Evans on the verge of a breakdown.
“We only have a week left before graduation, Hermione!” Evans stresses, the tips of her ears turning the same shade as her hair. “You need to start thinking of your future before it’s too late. The post-war Wizarding world job market is extremely competitive, and even though you’re smart enough and you have the backing of Sirius’ entire inherited fortune, you will need more than that in order to secure your dream job, which you should have thought about ages ago. Honestly, Hermione! What have you been doing your entire seventh year?”
“Remind me again why I can’t tell Lily about your girlfriend’s secret life as a spy?” James whinges, side-eyeing Sirius with mild annoyance.
“Because, for the last time, Prongsie, she’s not a bloody spy,” Sirius argues. He finds it supremely unfair that after all the time he’d once spent trying to convince them that Hermione is some sort of teenage assassin, now is when they finally decide to believe him. If there’s one thing he’s learned from Hermione’s near death experience, it’s that he feels the need to protect her secrets now more than ever. After all, if the situation is reversed, he’s confident James will do the same thing for Lily.
“You don’t need to lie to us, Padfoot. You know we’ll keep her secret, no questions asked,” Remus reassures him with a pat on the back that Sirius supposes is meant to be comforting.
Sirius groans, pushing off of the makeshift bar and snagging two glasses of firewhiskey. “I’m not talking to you guys about this anymore,” he grumbles as he goes off to rescue Hermione from Evans’ clutches.
“Hello, ladies,” he greets them both. He hands each of them a glass, smiling a little at Hermione’s immediate sigh of relief, before curling an arm around her shoulder and dropping a kiss to her temple.
Evans whips her head and looks at him expectantly. “Sirius, please tell me you’ve already talked to Hermione about her post-graduation plans,” she presses him. “Maybe if we can help her make a list -”
“No need, Evans,” Sirius cuts her off with a charming smile. “My girl and I are taking a gap year before we go and start looking for a job.”
Evans’ mouth drops open. “What? Not you too!” The look of abject dismay on her face is enough to rival that of McGonagall’s. “But why? I thought you and James wanted to join the Auror department.”
“That was before good ol’ Voldemort decided to go and off himself,” Sirius says with a shrug. “Now there are less bad guys to catch and you know how much I loathe to do paperwork.”
Hermione smacks him lightly on the chest. “So you and I are taking a gap year, is that right? Why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”
Sirius smirks at her. “I thought it’d be nice to surprise you with a tour to Italy. That, and I didn’t want to give you enough time to think of a counter argument,” he admits. “Besides, like you told Evans, it’s not like you’ve already made other plans, right?”
Hermione scrunches her nose like the adorable kitten that she is and says in a mildly put-upon tone, “Well, I did plan on traveling back in time after this, but then you stupidly gatecrashed your way into my heart with all the grace of an errant Bludger, and now I find myself unable to leave you.”
Sirius’ booming laughter makes heads in the common room turn in his direction, but he pays them no mind. “Godric, I love you so much,” he declares right before he hooks an arm around her waist and swoops down for a kiss.
Evans shakes her head at the snogging couple. “Time travel? Of all the outlandish things,” she mutters under her breath. “Ugh, you two really are made for each other.”