A/N This is actually the last chapter to Spiced Milk, but I thought it would be good jumping off point.
A few facts for those just tuning in, Hermione has just moved in with Sirius, as friends. Tonks is due to give birth in about three months to Remus' baby though she is with Kingsley. Harry and Ginny are married.
We begin this story with Hermione arriving home after a rough 'one last time' with Remus. A few months before hand, just after Hermione and Remus broke up Hermione seduced Sirius but nothing came of it except guilt.
And we begin...
Sirius heard the front door shut and lowered his book. From where he was sitting in the drawing room, he could see the hall table Hermione had bought for him last week. He watched as she emptied her pockets onto the table and shrugged off her coat. The light caught her face and he gasped at what he saw. Her lips were red and swollen. Her bottom lip was slightly bruised from what looked like a bite mark. The jaw line on the left side of her face was bruised and she winced as she joined him on the sofa.
"What happened? Were you attacked? Did you fight?" Sirius asked, putting his book down on the coffee table and leaning closer to her to get a better look.
Hermione laughed, tentatively touching her index and middle finger to her mouth.
"No, we didn't fight."
"Well, what the hell happened?" Sirius demanded, running his eyes over the rest of her body, looking for further injury. One of her wrists was bruised in the shape of … in the shape of a handprint.
"We got closure," Hermione said, blushing slightly. Sirius sighed as a myriad of emotions and visions ran through his mind. Remus should never had let the wolf get control of him like that and Hermione shouldn't have let him do this to her.
"I wanted it," she said, anticipating his thoughts. "I wanted rough; I wanted to physically feel the emotions. I wanted him to drive me into that wall. I wanted to feel his pain."
"Why?" Sirius asked, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.
Hermione let out a chocked sob. "I wanted to suffer."
"What?" Sirius said slowly, not quite believing what he was hearing. "Hermione, you don't deserve to suffer, ever."
"I screwed up so badly, Sirius. Not tonight, before. Being with you, pretending I could be friends with him. I love him but I can't be with him. I don't think that I could ever trust him like I did before. And I don't want that," she rushed on, trying to convince herself as much as him. "I don't want almost everything, I want the whole lot. I should have just tried to move on when he first broke it off."
Sirius sat there, helpless. He listened as Hermione berated herself, unsure of what to do or to say to make her hurt stop.
"But I clung, I clung so hard to the hope that he would turn around, change his mind and want me back. Dean was a joke, I should have never been with him. Everything just fell apart and then it was right and good and he left Tonks and he wanted to be with me and – and I couldn't do it. I could not do it. I finally got what I wanted and I didn't want it anymore."
Hermione's words came out slurred and disjointed through her tears.
She protested as Sirius suddenly scooped her up and carried her through the house. Up the stairs they went, taking special care not to upset anything along the way. He kicked opened the nicest bathroom in the house's door and deposited her in the middle of the room. He set the tub to filling with a flick of his wand and directed the salts and oils into the warm water.
"Take a bath, relax and then come find me. We'll talk for as long as you want and we'll get you cleaned up. Okay?"
"Okay," Hermione hiccupped. Sirius left her to settle, leaving the door open a crack to hear her if she called out.
When he reached the kitchen to get the first aide box Molly had sent over he was shocked to see Moony stepping through the fireplace.
"What are you doing here?" Sirius all but growled at his old friend.
"Is she here?" he asked, looking around the kitchen as if she was hiding under the table. "I need to talk to her."
"She's upstairs having a bath," Sirius said pushing Remus back towards the fireplace. "She looks like she's been beaten, Moony. What were you thinking?"
Remus ignored Sirius and tried to push past him up the stairs but Sirius blocked his path. They stood glaring at each other a moment before Remus launched himself at Sirius, knocking them both down. Unlike that morning, their fighting was serious and full of anger. Remus slammed Sirius into the ground, pinning him down. Sirius was quicker then Remuc thought though and soon rolled them, connecting his fist to Remus' face. All around the kitchen they wrestled, occasionally picking up objects to use as weapons. They picked themselves up off the floor, drawing their wands and pointing them at each other's throats.
"She's not the innocent party in this Sirius, we're equally to blame. You should see my back; it looks like Crookshanks was using it as a scratching post."
"Don't," Sirius said, disgusted, shaking his head. "She has bruises on her arms and her face. How could you do that to someone you supposedly love?"
"She asked for it!" Remus defended. "And it wasn't all me, the full moon is two nights away!"
"Stop using Moony as an excuse. Her skin was pure and white and you forced her down and marked her. She hurt you and bruised your pride and you can tell yourself whatever you want to help you sleep at night but the fact is, Remus, you hurt her. What was it she said? Oh that's right, that you drove her into the wall, that she felt your pain."
Remus dropped his wand and his eyes, ashamed.
"Is that what it was about, Remus? Making sure she was hurting as bad as you were?"
"I would never want to hurt her as much as I'm hurting. I don't know what happened, Sirius. I just lost control. I tried to back off but she bit me and that was it; I was gone."
Sirius sighed and also lowered his wand. He knew how aggressive Hermione could be when she wanted something. Most people didn't see it but she was a little firecracker. He'd learned that first hand when she had seduced him. They moved to sit down but stopped dead when they heard Hermione's cry of frustration.
"Sirius!" she called down the stairs. "Can you come help me? I can't, I can't get my shirt on, I'm too sore."
"I better go," Remus said, looking up the stairs. When he titled his head Sirius saw a clear bite mark on his neck. Not a hickey but a proper bite.
"I'll be right there," Sirius called. He turned to watch Remus forlornly make his way to the fireplace and floo home.
He found Hermione wrapped in a large bath sheet, standing awkwardly by the bathroom door. First Aide in one hand he used his free one to steer her towards his bedroom, the closest. He set the fire blazing and helped her onto the bed.
"He was here," Hermione stated, it wasn't a question. Sirius empited the box onto the bed and searched for some healing ointment.
"Uh, yeah," Sirius answered, not sure what to say. "You took a fair chunk out of his neck."
Hermione blushed bright red and winced as Sirius applied some ointment to her bruises. She looked through the potions and finding a pain killing one, sculled it in one go.
Sirius instructed her to lie on her stomach and he pulled the towel down, exposing her raw and bruised back. She studied him over her shoulder as he liberally applied the ointment to the scrapes and bruises.
"You fought," she said, another statement. "You're bleeding."
"Just defending your honour, love," he said, winking at her. She handed him a clean cloth out of the box and he dabbed at his split lip.
They were silent as he finished up on her back. He found another pain potion and took it himself. He readjusted her towel and lay on the bed next to her, the way two friends who are familiar with each other do.
She turned her head to the other side to look at him properly. He was staring into the fire, the flame light dancing across his dark features.
"You're a good friend, Sirius. To both of us. Don't be angry at him for this, it wasn't his fault."
"Just get some rest, Hermione," he sighed wearily. Hermione swallowed and turned away, unsure what she had done to upset him.
Sirius felt a stab of guilt shoot through him. He wasn't angry at her, he was angry at himself. Even battered and bruised she was beautiful and his body let him know it. He lay next to her all night, covering her with the blanket while he stayed on top.
The flames danced merrily in the fireplace. As Sirius grew more and more weary he imagined he could see him and Hermione moving together in the flame, skin against skin, touches white hot. Shaking his head, he closed his eyes and finally allowed sleep to claim him, not even aware of the delicate feminine hand that lay in his.