Chapter Text
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
.png)
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕖
─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─
31𝘴𝘵 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 2004
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
Hermione Granger had always lived too fast. She was up and walking by the time she was nine months old, talking in short sentences shortly after her first birthday, and reading before she turned three. By the time she was halfway through her primary school years, she’d long since realised that she was—somehow—older than her peers, despite their chronological sameness in age.
Oftentimes, she thought that perhaps fate—or magic, or some other, equally all-knowing entity—had been preparing her all along.
Her first brush with saving the Wizarding World came at age twelve.
By eighteen, she was a godsdamn war heroine.
Married by nineteen, the head of the Juvenile Werewolf Welfare subdivision of the Department for the Care and Control of Magical Creatures by twenty—which, to be fair, she had founded said subdivision herself, but that was beside the point.
A homeowner by twenty-one, she’d been ready to start a family with her husband and decade-long best friend—and then, as with all the best laid plans, everything had crashed down by the time she turned twenty-two.
Her subdivision lost funding, forcing her back to a desk in the bullpen to file paperwork all day. Her gorgeous little cottage was lost to—of all things—a muggle electrical fire. Unfortunately, one of the few things to survive said fire was the letter tucked into a drawer that held the proof that the aforementioned husband—slash—best friend was overjoyed to become a father.
To another woman’s child.
The divorce had been quick and efficient; Ron and Daphne had wanted things to be settled before the baby arrived, and Kingsley helped grease a few wheels to expedite the process, lest a scandal befall the Ministry’s favourite little trio of show ponies.
Thankfully, things had settled in the three years since. After a few too many nights on the floor with old photo albums and bottles of wine, a myriad of sessions with both mind healers and muggle psychologists, and endless girls' nights—which even eventually came to include one Daphne Weasley—Hermione had healed.
It took time, as all things do, but eventually she realised she and Ron would have simply never worked.
Honestly, where was the compatibility?
Eighteen-year-old child soldiers, trauma-bonded after seven years of saving the world side by side, don’t often take the time to stop and think about the bigger picture, she supposed. They had both been desperate for someone to cling to, to chase away the nightmares, and caught up in the comfort of the familiar. In the end, however, it was all for the best.
Ron was a good man. Hermione was a good woman. Together, they had been good friends. Together, they had also been rather shit at the whole married-couple thing. They hadn’t even shared a bed more than half the time, because she hated his snoring and he hated how she hogged the covers.
They’d gotten married because it was just the thing they were supposed to do next. After the war, when the dust had settled, Harry had Ginny, Hermione and Ron had each other, and that was simply the way that it was. Everyone was perfectly paired off and poised for their happily-ever-afters, so they moved forward and did what the world expected them to do.
In retrospect, they both knew that they should have done things differently, but she was eternally grateful for where they were now.
Things were good.
Daphne and Ron were a brilliant fit. Daphne lived to dote, to mother the universe, which worked in perfect tandem with the way that Ron needed to be nurtured, and—dare she say—coddled. There was no harm in Ron having those needs, of course; It had just been one of the many reasons they hadn’t fit, given the fact that Hermione herself also needed those things, and two left feet never make for a fluid dance.
Besides, Hermione found she’d had quite enough of raising Ron—and Harry, as it were. Call it selfish, but she’d put in enough work taking care of others. She was ready to be taken care of herself—or, to be more exact, to find that balance she needed; To find someone to take care of—because caretaking was an integral part of her being, and nurture was her nature—who would also take care of her.
Fucking balance.
It was the same issue she kept running into in the year since she’d started dating again.
She was twenty-five now; She’d taken a new position in the Department of Magical Education and loved her role as a Muggleborn Family Liaison. She had a nice little flat with a spare room she’d turned in to a library, a stellar collection of shoes, and—thanks to a newfound love for food after a year in a tent, three years stressed about how she’d look plastered on the front page of the prophet, a year of knowing her marriage was over and a year of dealing with it actually being over—curves for days that stopped any wizard in his tracks.
Not that she was conceited; She was just rather fit, had good enough eyesight to see it, and saw no sense in pretending she didn’t own it.
Still, finding that balance, that someone, seemed to be impossible—though not for lack of trying.
Hermione had no problem finding a date. In fact, according to Pansy—one of a handful of former Slytherin enemies turned reluctant acquaintances and eventual friends via Daphne—who had taken it upon herself to keep a little notebook in her quest to find Hermione a man, she had been on thirteen first dates, nine second dates, and two third dates in the last year, in addition to one three week situationship, and one night stand.
There also may have been a certain dalliance with one Draco Malfoy and his Husband Theo after too many drinks back in March—which may have been brilliant, yes, and which she also would not be discussing at this juncture, and no, she would also not be discussing any of the times she may or may not have repeated said dalliance, next question, please.
Still, that godsdamned issue persisted. She’d accept a date and pull out all the stops, both muggle and magical. She would wax and pluck and charm and smooth, throw on her best lingerie and her highest heels, slip into some slinky little number Pansy had designed and thrust upon her, and set out for the night, ready to be wooed.
And then, inevitably, she would spend the entire night either trying not to fall asleep in her wine glass whilst her date talked about quidditch or the magical trade market or his new dragonhide loafers—imported from Romania, of course—or trying to keep herself from digging her old DA galleon out of her handbag and sending Ginny an SOS to save her from the hell of trying to suffer through dinner with a guy who turned out to just be getting off on being seen out with The Golden Girl.
The groupies were the fucking worst.
Over and over again, though, it all came down to one thing: Hermione had lived too fast.
Some may call it conceit, but she was just so bloody intellectually understimulated. She always wound up feeling as if she were a decade older than every guy she dated, playing governess to some teenage boy while he prattled on about sports.
The idea of having to coddle another overgrown man-child was more of a turn-off than imagining Dolores Umbridge and Lord Voldemort in a three-way with Dobby the house elf.
For all of the love she had for being strong, independent, mature, and so on and so forth, she couldn’t help but want at least one area of her life where she didn’t have to be the one running the show.
“How’d that date go on Thursday?” Ginny asked, looking over her shoulder as she sat perched on the bench in front of Hermione’s vanity, fiddling with her hair.
“Do I even need to say it?” Hermione rolled her eyes and looked down, reaching a hand inside the top of her dress to adjust her left boob, which had decided it didn’t want to behave tonight, and thusly, refused to stay put.
Typical. She swore those fuckers drew straws to decide who would be going rogue which night.
“I’m telling you, we just need to find you a sugar daddy,” Pansy drawled as she propped her foot on the bench at the foot of the bed to roll a garter up her slender leg and position it on her thigh.
“I don’t need any sugar.” Hermione rolled her eyes, hooking one of the dangling diamond earrings Harry had given her for Christmas into her ears.
“Just a Daddy, then,” Ginny quipped.
“Well, if that’s what she’s into, who am I to kink shame?” Pansy looked up from where she was applying another coat of her ever-present blood red lipstick with the help of an ornate, antique compact mirror.
“Oh, trust me, Pansy, we all know you could never. Our ears would probably bleed if we had to hear everything you and Nev get up to in those greenhouses.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Pansy grabbed a tissue to blot her lipstick, then smirked over at Ginny. “You’d be surprised how many uses one can find for Devil’s Snare.”
“Quaffle!” Hermione called out, clamping her hands over her ears. She wasn’t a prude—not in the slightest. She could get down with any number of kinks, personally.
Personally.
Hearing her friends discuss their sexcapades, however, gave her the biggest of icks.
Ginny always said it was because she was the ‘mom friend’ and the rest of them, her pseudo-children, so of course, it weirded her out when they talked about sex. Hermione herself proclaimed it was simply because once they started, they never shut the fuck up.
Regardless, they could very easily not, but they all seemed incapable of not. Thus, the Quaffle motion was born.
“Fiiiinnnneeee. I’ll respect the conversational safe word. No more sex talk around Miss ‘It’s been three months, and my quim may have sewn itself shut by now.’” Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “I agree with Pansy, though. If the problem is that you’re finding everyone you’ve tried going out with unable to keep up with you as far as maturity goes, then maybe someone older is the way to go.”
“Exactly. We need to find you a silver fox. Rich, successful, fit. He’ll cart you off to Italy and Rome and buy you the finest Blahniks to add to your shoe collection, and you’ll pretend not to mind that he’s a little grey in the temples,” Pansy added.
I’d take grey eyes over Blahniks and Rome any day, Hermione thought to herself. Obviously, she couldn’t say that out loud, because she wore her feelings on her face like the Weasleys wore a day in the sun—reddening her appearance until the blush of want was all over her—and she knew that they would know exactly which pair of grey eyes she had in mind.
Though maybe if they did find her out, she could just convince them she had a thing for Narcissa or Andromeda, MILFs as they both were. That’d be a good enough cover. She’d been known to dabble with the fairer sex here and there.
“I don’t care about money, Pans,” she said instead.
“Sigh,” Pansy said, in lieu of actually sighing. “Shame. Fine. A poor fifty-five-year-old, then.”
“That seems to be pushing it a bit. Best to cap it around… eh, say forty-four, then.” Ginny laughed and shot Hermione a knowing look, which she pointedly ignored, and which absolutely did not inspire an urge to remind herself that her moral compass would not allow her to hex a pregnant witch.
Stupid Ginny and her stupid, constant way of knowing all the things Hermione refused to say.
“How do I look?” Ginny asked, mercifully changing the subject as she moved to stand in front of the mirror, smoothing her gown over her swollen stomach.
“Fat.” Pansy stepped up beside Ginny and ran her hand over her own still-flat stomach. “I’ve already informed the future little Longbottoms that they are NOT to make me any bigger than a size six, or they’re both grounded until they’re thirty.”
“Just wait, Pansy. I love being baby-bump fat. And Neville is going to lose his mind once you start to show. I swear, Harry gets hard the second I run a hand over—”
“Quaffle!” Hermione groaned. “I very clearly Quaffled!”
She rolled her eyes and finished buckling the strap on her heel, then moved to stand next to them in the mirror, taking in the picture they created with a soft smile as she tied her own mask around her face.
Pansy, tall and lithe, with her sharp features and sleek black bob, looked radiant in a deep burgundy lace gown that clung to her body like a second skin, her dark eyes shining beneath the matching mask, which was bordered with little amber jewels.
Ginny looked just as stunning with her Quidditch-toned arms on full display in her strapless, deep purple satin gown, a simple bit of braided gold cinching the material below her bust to highlight the swell of her stomach—five months now, with baby number two—topped off with an amethyst-jewelled mask with gold accents, her fiery red hair spilling in loose waves down her back.
And then, her. A solid six inches shorter than either of them, all hips and bust, soft tummy and wild curls. The gown Pansy had shoved her into was gold and glittery, because blah blah Golden Girl, but even she had to admit that between the corseted waist, plunging neckline, and thigh-high slit, she looked, for lack of better phrasing, hot as hell.
She tied on the—gold, of course, ugh—mask, and soaked up the view of the three of them for a moment longer, ignoring the pang of longing in her chest as she watched two of her favorite witches run affectionate hands over their stomachs, and took a deep breath, pulling back her shoulders and turning to the side to inspect Pansy’s handiwork.
“I don’t know, Pans,” she sighed, “it’s a bit too Golden Girl. I know the Ministry loves this crap, but, gods, I wish for one night I could just… not be this.”
“If I weren’t pregnant, I’d offer to polyjuice each other so I could borrow your tits and arse for the night,” Ginny offered helpfully.
Pansy barked out a laugh and shook her head, then gestured for Hermione to move away from the mirror and began to walk slow circles around her.
"You want to be... not the golden girl, for a night?" Pansy tilted her head, the tip of one perfectly-arched eyebrow rising above the top of her mask as she tapped her wand against her chin.
"I'd kill for it," Hermione laughed.
“Do you trust me?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Hmmm. Brightest Witch of our age, indeed.” Pansy nodded. She came to a stop and looked Hermione up and down, then began to work quickly, casting a variety of charms over her dress and hair while Ginny gasped and squealed, excitedly offering suggestions—go a little darker on the dress, smooth out the hair at her nape, for the sake of the gods, do something about that left boob, lest it spend the entire night waving hello to everyone that passes. Unless you want a tit out? You know, there was this old King in France who had this mistress, and she always wore—no? You’re no fun.
Finally, after she’d finished her work and Ginny had finished her commentary, Pansy grabbed Hermione by the shoulders to turn her back toward the mirror, and Hermione grinned.
This was what she needed. It was perfect.
Her usually wild hair fell straight and silky down to her waist, looking somewhat darker without the curls catching the light, and the dress was a deep emerald green—Slytherin green, classic Pansy—with silver accents. The mask was a sparkly silver, adorned with little emerald swirls, and now covered a broader section of her face, from the tip of her nose to the middle of her forehead.
“Wow. I can hardly even recognise myself,” Hermione laughed, “it’s perfect, Pans.”
“I know. Everything I do is perfect.” Pansy shrugged, grabbing her handbag off the vanity as they made their way toward the door.
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕦𝕤
─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─
“I don’t see why I’m needed at this stupid ministry shitshow,” Sirius grumbled as he slumped back in his chair, staring down at the amber liquid in his glass. The firewhisky, he could spend the evening with. A bunch of Ministry puppets parading around in masks, however? Honestly, maybe the dementors hadn’t been so bad; perhaps he should just call up Azkaban and make a reservation to spend the night in his old cell.
“Because it’s New Year’s Eve and we’re going to have fun. You may have heard of the concept?” Harry called over his shoulder. “Besides, you can’t restore the Black name by hiding at Grimmauld 24/7.”
“Fuck the Black name. Whose bloody idea was that anyway?” He rolled his eyes and brought his drink to his mouth, tipping it back and downing it in two quick gulps before he slammed it down onto the side table, then waved his hand to refill it.
“Yours,” Draco drawled, not looking up from where he’d busied himself fixing Theo’s tie as the latter perched in his lap, “though I’d wager Mother had influence, as she’s set her sights on you to produce the next Black family heir. Seems that, despite my best efforts, I continually fail at my constant—and vigorous—attempts to get Theo pregnant.”
“Sigh,” Theo said, “five long, arduous years of marriage, being reduced to breeding stock at every turn, and still, my womb remains barren, empty, devoid of the life that love is wont to create. Alas, we must stay the course. The disappointment persists, but so do we, in our pursuits. For the hope of the bloodline, of course.”
“I thought you two had that little… thing going?” Neville spoke up, ignoring Theo’s dramatics, commonplace as they were.
“Oh, yes, well, that was just a bit of fun. We’ve no desire to keep a witch in our bed full-time, and she has no desire to be kept.” Draco shrugged.
“She won’t even play with us anymore.” Theo pouted, crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant child. Draco leaned in, shushing him, and began to coo praise as he patted his husband’s head. They were cute, those two, if not a bit much.
“Well, that’s Hermione for you.” Harry shook his head and laughed. “I’m surprised she even… not to insinuate she’s a prude or anything. She’s just had a shit year, so she isn’t big on taking risks these days.”
Sirius clenched his fist around the glass in his hand as he forced himself to breathe, and to very much not think about wild curls and full lips and a mind that made him want to blow his whole life up. A road which his thoughts packed up their bags and set off to travel down of their own volition, despite his best efforts to the opposite—but one that he could never truly explore.
His fucking godson’s best friend. Sure, they were all grown up now—and Godric fucking Gryffindor, had that little witch grown the fuck up—but she was Harry’s.
Not in the romantic sense, or even the physical, but in ways that ran far deeper. Harry had a full, rich life now. Friends, a good job, all the charity work he did in his spare time, a gorgeous wife who looked at him like he hung the moon. A little boy, and another on the way. But years before Harry finally succeeded in wrenching the kindness he deserved out of life with his bare hands, he’d had her.
He'd had her and Ron both, sure. Neville and Luna—now living in France with her wife Astoria—but he had her, and, more than anyone else ever had, she had Harry. It was her love that got him through. Her push that shoved him along. Her encouragement and support that kept him going. Her mind—that beautiful, infuriating, intoxicating fucking brain—that got Harry through to the finish line so they could save the world. Sirius had watched life grow and change by leaps and bounds in the last few years, but that fact never changed.
She was Harry’s, in a way that most would never even grasp. Acting on his feelings and taking the chance of fucking that up for the boy who had been through enough wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. He took another sip and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the thoughts of her back into the little box in his mind that always seemed to scream her name. Tonight was important to Harry, on the heels of his promotion to the position of lead Hit Wizard in the Auror Department, so he’d be on his best behaviour, and not eye-fuck her from across the room.
Not that much, at least. He’d ration out the eye-fucking throughout the evening. He could do that.
“You know I only do this for you, yeah?” Sirius asked, as he set his glass down and rose from his chair and walked over to Harry, clapping a hand on his Godson’s shoulder.
He knew the double meaning was lost on Harry, who likely assumed he was only referring to all the pomp and circumstance of public events, and not the fact that he also resisted the urge to throw Harry’s best friend over his shoulder and lock her in his bedroom until she gave up the fight—because gods, could she fight, that mouth knew no bounds. He wondered far too often what that mouth could do, thought about it every time he brought his hand down and—
Gave up the fight. Right. That’s what he was thinking about. Until she gave up the fight and agreed to stay in his bed forever. But she was Harry’s, and he could never be the one to take one more thing away from the kid, so he put on the monkey suits when duty called, just as he resisted the urge to go all caveman. Both things, in equal measure, he only did for Harry.
“Yep.” Harry grinned at him. “You’ll be just fine, old man.”
Just fine. Sirius Orion Black was, as fate would have it, an expert at being just fine. He’d been raised in the shittiest of circumstances, and he was just fine. He lost everyone and spent twelve years in Azkaban, and he was just fine.
He survived a war and geared up to fight another, only to die, and then to pop out of the veil when Voldemort fell. The Unspeakables had concluded that a surge from the power passed between Harry and Riddle had caused a rift in the veil between worlds for a split second, but apparently, it was just long enough for him and a few others who had gone through without technically dying to make their break, and he was alive again, and that, too, was just fine.
He was rather fucking sick of being just fine.
Once upon a time, he’d been the type of man who had allowed himself to hope for something greater. A wife and kids, Saturday nights at the Leaky with James, Remus and Pete, Sunday dinners at Godric’s Hollow while the next generation of Marauders ran around underfoot.
When Harry was born, it felt like a new beginning for all of them.
He and Marlene had stayed up talking for hours after they got home to their flat from visiting the newest little Potter in St Mungo’s, watching the rain beat against the bay window across from the foot of their bed as they wove dreams of little faces housing his grey eyes and her freckles, and a house in the Italian countryside.
It had been raining the day they’d put her in the ground, too. He hated the rain for years after, used to lose his bloody mind when he was trapped in that cell with no choice but to listen to the rain falling against old stone, but rainy days, too, were just fucking fine now.
“Right.” He nodded, forcing a grin as he reached out to smooth down Harry’s ever-messy hair. The James of it all punched him in the gut, as it always did, but he widened his smile and pushed it aside. “It’ll be just fine, kid. Now, which of these hunks of plastic am I supposed to cage this beautiful face under tonight?”
“Rude!” Theo scoffed. “They aren’t plastic. Those are all antique family heirlooms, from 17th-century Italy. But do take the blue and gold, love. I think it will suit you best.”
Sirius rolled his eyes but complied as he slipped on the mask and turned to check himself in the mirror.
It worked. He wasn’t big on the get-up he’d let his little cousin talk him into—though he couldn’t deny the skill that Longbottom girl showed in her tailored designs. The simple black and white tux was far too plain for his normal tastes, but the work was expert-level. Perhaps, he thought, he’d blend in with the scenery a little better this way. On that thought, he pulled out an extremely rare stop and summoned a hair tie.
He couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, he’d tied his hair back. He rather liked letting it flow loose and messy, but it had become his signature look. Anyone could spot him from across the room by his hair alone. Given the fact that he had no desire to perform tonight—and, in equal measure, the fact that random witches were always far too eager to run their hands through his hair without asking, when that was sacred, godsdammit—he figured being left the fuck alone was worth the sacrifice of hiding his most prized feature.
That boy of his had better be glad he loved him. He’d even shaved, muggle razor and all, completely divesting himself of his usual scruff. So really, if that didn’t show how much he loved the damn kid, he didn’t rightly know what would, because he’d have rather not dealt with a single ounce of all this shit tonight.
The fact that Harry’s wife had cornered him with a razor and informed him he was shaving or she’d cast a Petrificus Totalus and shave him herself—and the greater fact that Ginny Potter with a blade in her hand was bloody terrifying—notwithstanding, he’d cleaned up and put on the stupid suit and he would go behave at the stupid event and pretend as if he didn’t want to hex three fourths of the government drones in that building.
Sirius was bitter.
He accepted that. It wasn’t necessarily that he enjoyed being bitter; he was merely suffering from a lack of unbitter things to fill his days. Sure, he had things to look forward to. His godson—his boy, for all intents and purposes—his daughter-in-law, who he loved dearly despite the fact that she was a teensy bit unhinged. His pseudo-grandson, James, now four, running and babbling his arse off about dragons to anyone who would listen, and the new baby on the way, they were all the best parts.
He’d reconnected with Andie and Cissa after the war and bridged the gaps, gotten closer with that ponce of a younger cousin and his ridiculous husband via Harry’s ever-growing group of strays that always seemed to fill the halls of Grimmauld Place. He had his bike and his freedom, spent most weekends out at Andie’s place or Remus and Tonks’ cottage watching Teddy run around, and getting to see Mooony be a dad was one of the best parts, too.
So there was plenty to be un-bitter about, indeed. But it all never seemed to be enough. He wondered, often, if anything ever would be enough.
Maybe that was just the way it goes, when you lose your future to the war, your twenties to prison, a chunk of your thirties to the veil, and so on and so forth, and such is the tragic tale of Sirius Orion Black.
Maybe he was just bored.
Either way, he would wear the mask and go to the damn ministry and be proud of his boy because that was his job. He and Moony were the only ones left standing to show up for Harry, to show up for those kids as far as Harry’s side was concerned, and for all his internal—and, admittedly, far-too often, external—bemoaning, he would always show up for the family he had now.
“Right, so, I’ve been given strict instructions that we are to find the girls ourselves, Nev. Guess they’re leaning into the whole mystery bit of it all.” Harry chuckled as he glanced in the mirror, straightening his tie once more before he gave the group a final nod and turned to head out of the study, the rest falling in line behind him.
Sirius picked his glass of whisky back up and downed the contents in one quick gulp, then followed suit, dragging his feet as he hung behind the little crowd. Fuck, this was going to be a long night. He was already ready to be back home, where he could brood in peace.
He’d grown rather fond of his brooding time, thank you very much.
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
𝕚'𝕝𝕝 𝕓𝕖 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕖
𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚'𝕞 𝕟𝕠𝕥
𝕚'𝕞 𝕗𝕒𝕣 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕝𝕪
𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚'𝕧𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕥
(𝕚 𝕘𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕤 𝕚 𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪 𝕘𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕥 𝕞𝕖)
⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆