Disclaimer: I dun own Harry Potter. If I did, I would retire at the ripe ole age of 19 and have Gary Oldman playing piano in my living room once a week. XD
The rain was pouring steadily outside, causing a mask of water over the single paned window. The sound was rhythmic, refreshing as the constant sound of raindrops washed away the dirt on the outside world.
She was thankful that the kitchen had a single window, even if it was a small one. She was dressed in her pajamas which consisted of an overlarge t-shirt and heavy woolen socks. The t-shirt, left over from her Hogwarts days, had "Ancient Runes Club" splashed across the front of the shirt. Despite wearing the same shirt for four years, it was still in one piece, even if it was extremely faded. Her hair was in a messy bun; if she let it down while she slept the soft curls would turn into ugly brown fizz. Even she must sacrifice some comfort for beauty.
A nearly full cup of tea lay in her hands as she slowly nursed it. Three years out of Hogwarts and not much had changed. Yes, her career had progressed nicely, an apprentice Healer at twenty-one. Normally it took at least until your were twenty-five before you were considered. But nothing had changed.
Emotionally, she was still the seventeen year old girl who broke her time turner. Sometimes she wished she had gone to a time where there was nobody she knew. It would have been easier, she reasoned, it would have been fair. Life is never fair, she mused.
This week had been a small Hogwarts reunion of sorts. It was more of a Golden Trio reunion actually. Harry had invited her and Ron to stay for the week at 12 Grimmauld Place in celebration of his twenty-second birthday.
Shortly after graduating Hogwarts, Harry had entered Auror training while moving into Grimmauld Place with Remus. Remus couldn't get a job after it leaded that he was a werewolf in their third year, so Harry let him move-in rent-free.
Three months later, during an Auror training exercise, Voldemort attacked Harry. No one knows quite what he was thinking at the time, attacking Harry in a room full of Aurors and Aurors-to-be, but Harry trailed him back to the Ministry of Magic where Voldemort was sealed in the Mirror of Erised. Despite the fact that Voldemort was sealed in a rather effective prison, his Horcruxes and the majority of his follows still existed. Without their leader to guide them however, they were unorganized and the attacks made by them rarely involved more than two Death Eaters at once. Because of these infrequent and unorganized attacks, the Order could now focus more on the gathering of the Horcruxes instead of constantly defending themselves from Death Eaters.
Three months after that, when a Ministry employee was experimenting on the Veil, he was startled when a very angry Sirius Black appeared and attacked him, thinking he was a Death Eater.
It took another month for the Ministry to release Sirius from their experimentation and interrogation. He could not tell them much about his experience in the Veil, but he was deeply saddened when he realized that he missed five more years of Harry's life. Two months ago, he moved into Grimmauld Place, and he used these to months to improve his health and appearance. He was now clean-shaven, his hair was no longer matted together but long and well-kept, and he gained enough weight and muscle mass to rival Ron, who was now a Professional Quidditch player.
He hadn't been doing much these past two months, but he knew he'd rather invest the old Black fortune rather than work a steady nine to five job. As a consequence, he was at Grimmauld Place almost constantly.
This made coming here a little uncomfortable for her, for Sirius Black was the man she met and loved when she broke her time turner at the beginning of seventh year. It was amusing, she thought wryly, that the bookworm Hermione Granger would fall for the marauding womanizer Sirius Black. Life is unfair after all. She could hardly blame herself, however, because he pursued her first. There's just only so many times one could refuse the infamous Sirius Black, even if you were a mysterious transfer student under the name of Jane Granger. She didn't blame him either, she reasoned, because how would his seventeen year old self know that the girl he was pursuing was really his future god son's best friend?
She once again nursed her quickly cooling cup of tea. She had wondered when she returned to her proper time if he had known that Hermione Granger was the same person as Jane Granger. She doubted it though, as the only Hermione he had known was the young, overzealous Hermione instead of the older, wise beyond her years Hermione. War changes everyone, she mused.
It wasn't until his welcome home party two months ago that she knew that he suspected. She and Ron had started arguing over the food to be served, but more importantly, over the drinks to be served. Hermione had frowned over the amount of fire whiskey that Ron had brought. Everyone had started rinking before the party had started, except for her. When Ron was effectively sloshed, he had tried to get Hermione to drink to no avail. When he kept pestering her, she exploded.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley! I will not drink that foul liquid!" She seethed. She failed to raise her voice because she knew she didn't have to. Under normal circumstances, Ron would have given up at this point, but alcohol gave him extra courage.
"This is a party, Hermione Jane Granger," he grinned, "and you're the only one not drinking."
At this point, Sirius had choked mid-drink. They had locked eyes, and a new understanding grew between them. His eyes shone with confusion, despite the newly mixed emotions of sadness and longing swirling in the cobalt of his eyes. Her eyes broke away from his at this moment and she took the drink Ron was holding out to her. She downed it in one gulp, ignoring the burn in her chest as everyone, except for Sirius, cheered and toasted. She wondered if the pain was from the fire whiskey, or from her heart.
She avoided him after that, not that it was very hard due to her busy schedule, and he did not seek her out. The less they spoke the better, she reasoned.
But yet, here she was, sitting in his house in the middle of the night, reminiscing about old times. She briefly wondered how things could have been different. Maybe it would have been better if she had stayed in the past and grew old with him, but she shook this off as being incredibly selfish. Better for whom? She asked herself. Life is unfair, she once again reminded herself.
Her tea had now gone cold. She took a deep breath and sighed as she got up to make a fresh cup. She constantly questioned her actions in the past even though she knew it was pointless. It was the part of her where the schoolgirl resided, wanting nothing but the notion of true love.
"Can't sleep, love?" A deep baritone voice came from the doorway. She turned to greet the intruder into her time for thoughts, making eye contact and nodding before turning back to making her tea.
"Care for a cuppa?" She asked him, as she reached for a clean cup, already knowing the answer. He nodded through half-lidded eyes, knowing that she already knew his answer.
She busied herself around the kitchen, boiling water and trying to remember where she put the tea and strainer. He still stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Despite his eyes never wavering from her form as she continued her actions as if he wasn't watching her intently, the imagine of him burned into her mind. Even though that now he was twenty-one years her senior, the sight of him just in a pair of pajama pants is enough to haunt her. Her brief eye contact with him allowed her to look at his frame from her peripheral vision. She took in the tattoos and the scars stretched across the olive skin over the defined muscles of his chest, slimming down into his rather lean waist. His hair, now long enough to rival her own, was tied with a loose ribbon, not unlike a one Lucius Malfoy. Damn pureblood fashion sense, she thought amused.
She poured the tea into the cups and kept eye contact with him as she sat down in her previous chair, sitting his cup at the seat directly across from her. She saw that he did not move, nor did his eyes waver from her, even as she sat his eyes did not waver, but rather flickered to her legs when her t-shirt rose before returning to her face.
"Can't sleep either?" She asked, her eyes now on her cup as she slowly stirred the liquid within.
"My mind is too active at night," he responded, slowly skulking to the place she had set for him. Despite his desire for her to look at him, her eyes did not leave her cup. "Left over from spending so much time in either Azkaban or in hiding." His elbows were now on the table. Hermione had felt as if his presence had taken over the whole room, so she chose to keep her eyes on the cup in avoiding embarrassing herself as she gave her wordless sound of affirmation.
They sat like this for several minutes with his eyes on her and her eyes on her cup. Neither of them drank. When the tea had grown cold, she took a deep breath and sighed as she rose to once again pour out another cup of tea. When she attempted to reach for his cup to pour out as well, he grabbed her wrist, forcing her to look at him.
"I had debated, love, whether or not you were really you." Her eyes slightly widened, taking in the ironic grin that was on his face. She realized how ridiculous that sounded, for a person could only be themselves. Then, she looked at it from his point of view, how she and her past self could be two separate people. She said nothing, as he continued to search her face for something, anything to let him know what she was thinking. "In your third year, when I saw you with Harry, I thought that maybe you could have been Jane's daughter." He gave a wry laugh at this statement. "Then, when I heard that your parents were muggles, I knew it couldn't be true." He stood up, still holding onto her wrist, forcing her to look up at him and to acknowledge him. "I never would have guessed your middle name is Jane." He wasn't smiling anymore, just an expressionless mask on his face. He was still searching her, searching for something to either give him hope or to take what was left of the hope he already had.
She stood there, staring at him, not believing that they were talking about this. Not believing that he was talking about this. She sighed internally, life really wasn't fair. At this, she abandoned her desire to take his cup of tea away, and broke away from his grip to place hers in the sink. As she began to wash out her second cup of cold tea, she decided that she really should say something to him, to at least acknowledge him and his thoughts that he had so kindly directed towards her.
"We really shouldn't talk about this." She said as if it were final. With her back to him, she did not see his expressionless mask turn to one of disbelief, almost anger.
"Why not, sweets?" He asked. He moved towards her, knowing that even though she was facing away from him, she knew exactly where he was in the room. As he grew close to her, she stopped washing the cup and turned off the faucet.
"Because words are pointless, Sirius." She sighed. She turned towards him, with her elbows resting on the sink behind her. She was getting annoyed, he could tell. Since she was already on the path to annoyance, he figured that it was pointless to stop now. He reached her, her eyes came up to meet his as he placed his hands on either side of her, laying them on the sink behind her.
"You say words are pointless, love, but yet you know it is not true." He breathed as he declined his face towards hers. Her eyes had narrowed due to the lack of personal space caused by him. She was uncomfortable, he could tell, but it was too late to back down now. "The only time words are pointless is when there are actions to replace those words."
"Would you prefer these actions of yours?" She asked him. She was definitely annoyed now. She was just trying to avoid him, to get away from him, so she would not have to face the memories that she had tried for the past three years to bury. She realized that while she had only three years to ignore what happened, he had more than twenty years to forget. She doubted, however, due to his current mood, that he had ever forgotten.
"The question is not whether or not I would prefer these actions, but whether or not you would prefer them." He drew his hand into her hair and pulled out the band that kept her messy bun into place. As the tendrils and soft curls fell around her face he once again moved his hand into her hair only to caress the soft curls before gripping them to pull her face up to his. His rough lips moved over her soft ones and it took a moment for her to respond. He pulled her towards him, using the sink to keep her pinned as he used his hands to draw her tighter to him. Her mouth parted for him and they kissed as only old lovers do. Years of war, strife, and tears were poured into a passionate kiss of longing, love, and regret.
She moved her arms around his neck and as she did so, realized that this may be wrong, but how can something so wrong feel so right? How could she forget a man she loved so dearly for several years, who loved her for over two decades? Her answer, the only word that could drive her back to her reality, flashed to the front of her mind.
Harry. Harry needed her. Harry, who had suffered so much for so long, did not need to know about her escapades in the past, nor her involvement with his godfather. She could not hurt him. She would not him. But, in doing so, she would hurt Sirius.
She turned her head from his, catching her breath. He was still watching her, never once had he averted his gaze. She didn't say anything, she didn't need to say anything, for after all, words were pointless. She moved away from him, heading towards the door, allowing him to collect and clean his own cup of tea. He, however, never moved, but always stood watching her.
"Life is unfair." He sighed. He turned towards the sink, away from her, the only time he had turned away for the entire night.
She stopped walking when she got into the door frame of the kitchen. She didn't turn, but just stood where she was. "No, Siri. Life is fair." She calmly stated. "Our actions just have more consequences than we can see." She continued then, heading up the stairs, heading to her bedroom alone.
He followed her shortly after, retiring to his own bedroom. He lay in bed, contemplating the girl that was Hermione Jane Granger, the girl who he met, loved, and lost only to meet again and lose for a second time. Life is fair, he mused. He wondered if when she grew old that she would be alone like him. Alone because of the fairness of life. He hoped not, but then part of him knew that this would be so, for no one could ever give Hermione Jane Granger what she wanted, and nobody, not even himself, was worthy of such a girl.
A/N: I like reviews, so hit that little button and leave a little comment. :)