A/N: Chapter revised October 23, 2017.
Chapter II: Puppy Love
Sirius Black loved the girls.
He loved all sorts of girls, and witches specifically; he loved long hair that looped and twirled along narrow shoulders; he loved the way their robes billowed over breasts and how they walked with a sway to their hips; how they sighed his name and the way that they moaned. He loved how girls would bite down on full bottom lips and blush like mad whenever he so much as smirked in their direction.
Sirius Black wasn't really a one-woman-kind-of-guy, and he didn't really have a goal. He liked tall girls and short girls, both thick and skinny; he loved girls with big breasts or no breasts at all; girls with blond hair or brown, black or red; Pure-blood or muggle-born, half-blood or squib. Sirius Black was a hopeless, irredeemable womanizer, and usually he spent his days perfecting this quirk to a fault. He was a Pure-blood prince who belonged to everybody. And although he only ever spent a night or two with each girl in question—maybe two weeks tops, if he really liked them—he was always kind to his paramours once he dropped them. It was part of his unflappable charm.
Well, mostly he was kind. Usually. With Pure-bloods like himself, he could get a bit harsh. He was devastatingly generous until he wasn't. Loyal friend until you crossed him, and then he was all mother's wrath and vicious, uncontrollable spite. Walburga's son Sirius was, even though he was loath to admit it; complete with roaring rage and Pure-blood mania, just like his bitch of a cousin Bellatrix.
Gryffindor, he liked to remind himself. He was in Gryffindor, and the rest of his family could eat it, for all he cared. Even still, there was the Slytherin side of him that lingered in bits and pieces, all wounded and angry. He'd been sorted into the wrong house—no lions amongst this Pure-blood brood—but Sirius was okay with that. He'd wanted it.
Maybe. Potentially. Some days he wasn't sure.
So Sirius focused on girls, and sometimes Quidditch, and despite his aristocratic good looks he lived life sort of rough. Nihilism was key, and he was dangerously reckless, but he adored his ladies. He didn't like thinking about the less-than-pleasant aspects of life, so he thought about them: about their soft skin and their swaying hips and long looping hair. Sirius was not the introspective sort, nor the kind of guy to settle down like his best buddy Prongs.
Then, he'd met her.
Sirius didn't know why, but he really, really liked her. He liked her enough to date her; he liked her enough to date her for a whole two months. Sirius liked her so much he was trying to find her in the halls and staring at her in class and scribbling down her name in his notebooks, then crossing out her last name and putting his own down instead.
Hermione Granger. Hermione Black. It was pathetic, but he couldn't help himself. The only thing that was missing from his Notebook of Doom were the hastily scribbled hearts. Maybe it was because she was purposely avoiding him, and he loved a challenge. Maybe it was because she didn't seem to care for his infamous last name at all. But Merlin take him, Sirius liked her like he loved his freedom. He was so crazy over Hermione that he was failing all his classes and he'd only been back at school one week. He was going crazy just trying to find time to talk to her, and Moony, Wormtail and Prongs had determined they were never going to let him hear the end of it.
"Ba-a-a-a-ad." Prongs began bleating at him in the Great Hall during dinner one day. "You got it ba-a-a-a-ad."
"Stop it!" hissed Lily, smacking his arm, and Prongs yelped. "Don't be cruel!"
At first all Sirius did was sit there despondently, clenching his spoon in his tightly fisted right hand. He glared over the table at the ever-indomitable James Potter.
"I'm not being cruel! Sirius can take it," his best friend declared. Lily slapped his arm again, and harder this time.
"Not him, you daft loon!" she said in a too-loud whisper. "Her. I mean her. Merlin, she's half-scared out of her wits most times. Do you know what the rumors would do to her?!"
And then Sirius got angry. Really, really angry—like mother-dearest levels of rage. He forgot himself, just for a moment, and he forgot he was at Hogwarts and not amongst Blacks. Casting curses on your best friend was not the best course of action, even if you were totally convinced the lady in question was the love of your life, but this was about her. This was about Hermione, and how she was already as jumpy as a half-dead horse. How dare Prongs try to make her feel uncomfortable.
How dare he be so cruel to Granger.
Sirius had always been a good friend—the best friend, who'd resorted to Slytherin tricks and Pure-blood charm just to steer Lily Evans their way. But somewhere between imagining Hermione's hand in his and hexing Prongs black and blue, Sirius ended up springing across the table, ankle-deep in mashed potatoes, and slugging James Potter across the face. He had a lady to defend, and Sirius was shite at long-term thinking.
"Again!" Lily shrieked. "You're doing it again!"
"Pay up," Remus whispered to Peter over some bet or another, and the smaller boy reached into his pocket, handing over a collection of chocolate frogs with a frown. The whole hall was staring, and James was clawing at him, but just as Sirius was getting him into a headlock Professor McGonagall swept in; separating the two of them sans wand and yanking them up by their earlobes.
"Detention!" she shrieked. "Both of you, after class! Sirius Orion Black, ten points from Gryffindor. You hear me? That's ten this time. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"No," Sirius spat, teeth bloody, and all he could think was that it had been worth it. Totally worth it, because McGonagall was a lovely old bint and he'd take her over mummy-dearest any damn day. At least she didn't use Cruciatus.
Fluttering his eyelashes, Sirius grinned. "I'd like a kiss, though."
"Make that fifteen."
Sirius didn't calm down—he couldn't when it was about her—but he and Prongs made up pretty quick, like they always did, and by the end of the week they found themselves sitting on the Quidditch stands together, staring out at nothing. James was captain that year, and Sirius was a beater. Clobbering balls with clubs really, really helped with his anger issues, and he was angry all the time, except when he thought about her.
"Why do you like her so much?" Prongs asked, clearly confused. All Sirius could do was look down at his lap and thread his hands together, to try and hide the trembling. It was a mess, such a mess, and he didn't know how to tell them. He didn't know how to say that when he'd first met her in the hall, she'd already been scared; all too-big books and thick black robes, looking small and strangely shrunken.
She'd moved with a slight shake to her limbs that Sirius had instantly recognized, because when mother-dearest had been at her worst unforgivables were her favourite. Hermione hadn't looked him in the eye when they'd met. She'd tried to huddle up, and in the beginning all he'd seen was the shakes until he bent down. Then he'd realized she'd had on a Not Notice Me charm, and oh Merlin, she'd been really, really pretty, too, with big brown eyes and delicate bones and honeyed curls that bounced when she walked. He'd desperately wanted to reach out and touch her.
Sirius hadn't understood why Hermione was hiding. Why the girl was hiding anything, really, because he'd seen her in class and the witch was devastatingly smart. Hermione, she'd said, my name is Hermione Granger, and he'd related to her limp and her shakes so hard he was absolutely wrecked. After she'd fled from the hall, Sirius had written down her name on a slip of paper and kept it close to his heart, because a wisp; she reminded him of a wisp, and he was terrified she was going to disappear like one too. He was on the verge of having nightmares about it.
Sirius wanted to tell Prongs about this. He wanted to confide in him how desperate he was, and just how much his insides hurt. But they didn't know, and they couldn't; they didn't have the shakes or the brittle-bone sort of way a person carried themselves after something like that. He was pretty sure there was something wrong with Hermione's arm too, 'cuz she seemed to be favoring it, but that was her secret. Her secret to keep, and Sirius' to keep safe. They wouldn't understand her, not like him, and Merlin, Merlin help him, he liked her so much. The words were stuck in his throat, and he was gasping.
James sat beside him, watching him struggle; he sighed really loud, then slapped his hand companionably across Sirius' back, looking out across the pitch. Tomorrow they'd be holding tryouts.
"You really like her, don't you?"
"Nice," Sirius gasped through gritted teeth, his hands clenched so tightly together his knuckles popped. The panic was coming back, strong and thick. It was a cage, and he was trapped in it. Don't think about it, he told himself. Think about her. "You, you gotta be nice—"
"We will," James assured him, but there was a slight edge of worry to his tone. The setting autumn sun was glinting off the brassy rim of his glasses. "But shite, you sure you're alright Padfoot? I've never seen you—"
"I'm fine," he bit out. He definitely wasn't.
"Yeah, sure you are."
Sirius refused to tell James that he was right. Priorities: he had them.
Potions was his favourite class now. It was his favourite class because she was in it, and Sirius had never tried to be so well behaved in all his life.
"Where is Sirius Black and what have you done with him?" Remus demanded as they set up their supplies. It was warm day that morning, even in the dungeons: unsually tepid, almost, as outside the sky had been dark and overcast. There was a soft smile on Remus' face as he placed his mortar and pestle on a nearby desk, but he'd only been halfway joking in his remark.
Sirius ignored him, jealously hoarding the empty seat next to his as he kept a frantic eye on the door.
He knew Hermione's schedule by now, or what he could through creeping: through spending his nights watching her move furtively about the school on the Marauder's Map. Lily had told him to stop stalking her—"seriously Sirius, just give it a rest, she's clearly not interested"—and eventually James had been forced to step in, because he'd gone from bad to worse in a matter of days and honest to Merlin he was an absolute mess.
It was puppy love; the worst sort of puppy love, because Hermione Granger was obviously not buying it, and he was a goddamn Black. Maybe she didn't like Pure-bloods, he'd thought at first—a lot of witches hated the rules and regulations that came along with it—but by the end of the week it became clear that she just didn't care. The knowledge of this made Sirius simultaneously giddy with hope and absolutely wrecked with sadness. Every morning he woke up early, trying to find time to talk to her, but either he slept in too late or she just never made it downstairs. When Hermione did arrive for breakfast in the Great Hall, she always made sure to hide behind her books. Sirius had tried sitting next to her once, and she'd all but choked; he'd offered her Butterbeer to help with the choking, and when she'd taken the glass from him, whispering thanks, her hand had been trembling. Sirius' hand had been trembling too.
Hermione never watched Quidditch, or sat in the stands with the rest of the girls; she spent most of her time in the library, but Sirius had been banned from there after knocking over six whole shelves in a furious attempt to hex Snivellus. At night Granger always wandered through the castle, this way and that. More than once she'd ventured into the Forbidden Forest, but Sirius hadn't snitched on her yet. Partially he kept his peace because he was deathly curious, but mostly it was because he was terrified of her getting hurt. She had the shakes and the brittleness, the dark circles around her eyes. He knew she was fragile, physically, at least. Merlin, if anyone tried to hurt her he'd burn the whole thing down. He hated his mother, but Sirius was Walburga's son in all but intent. He was lucky Narcissa was no longer in school, because the witch would have noticed his mood swings and snitched on him.
"Alright students, take out your textbooks." Professor Slughorn said, waddling along in his heavy silk robes towards the front of the class.
Sirius shot a panicked look at the door, his long fingers drumming along the top of his wooden desk. She was late. Merlin, why was she late? She couldn't be late. He'd saved a seat for her.
Hermione was polite and very pretty, but extremely jumpy and terribly withdrawn. It had taken Sirius less than a day to realize she was deathly afraid of talking to others. No one else was looking out for her, so he'd decided to do it himself. That included saving a seat for her. He was going to take care of her, at least until she got settled. The other students didn't understand her nervousness, and the fact that they didn't was driving him mad. The rumors about Hermione's recalcitrant behavior had begun almost immediately, and while some were sympathetic—"poor thing, maybe she lost someone"—others had decided she wasn't a true Gryffindor. It happened sometimes with late year transfers, being sorted into the wrong house.
Not true, Sirius wanted to scream, not true at all, because he had been sorted into the wrong house. Hermione was just walking wounded. She had the bad balance like he'd had; that same sort of brittle-bone thing that he'd been prone to before getting blasted off the family tree. And maybe he liked her because he knew they were similar; a girl just like him, and finally, there was someone he could confide in. Sirius wanted that.
"Ah! Ms. Granger," Professor Slughorn exclaimed jovially, his green silk robes whispering along the cool stone floor. Like a bobble-headed doll Sirius immediately turned towards the door, twisting all the way around in his seat.
Behind him James sighed. Remus put his head in hands, and Peter looked bored. Lily gave him an icy glare, her hand clenching tightly around the base of her wand. She was mad at him again.
"Glad you could make it," Slughorn was saying in that slightly touched, genial way of his. He beckoned Hermione forward with an expansive wave of his age spotted hand. The other fiddled with the brass pocket watch nestled comfortably in the front of his waistcoat. "Please, find a seat and partner up. I was just about to start the lesson."
"I'm sorry Professor," Hermione said. Sirius just stared at her, drunk on the sight. Her small figure stood forlornly in the doorway, nearly drowning in robes; the way she kept her head down and gaze averted was definitely alarming, and Sirius wanted to get up and help her, but he didn't, so all he did was stare. He kept on staring until Lily elbowed James in the side, clearing her throat in that do-something-about-him sort of way.
James didn't at first, but when Lily began digging the base of her wand into her desk, he sighed and leaned forward, smacking Sirius upside the head. It broke his concentration. Sirius reared back in alarm, blinking hard.
"Desperate," James mouthed with a grin on his face. "Really desperate."
Across the row, Parkinson—a Slytherin Prefect, all slinky brown hair with a full bottom lip—gave him a glare. Sirius pointedly ignored her.
It hadn't been long since he'd been with Parkinson last: literally an hour before meeting Hermione on the first day of school, all tangled up in each other's arms in his favorite first-floor broom closet. If Sirius thought hard enough, he could still feel her skin; he could still taste her full bottom lip between his teeth, smooth like rum, but he didn't like rum now. He wanted honey. Hermione's curls looked like caramel in the light. Merlin, he'd go for anything sweet. He wasn't picky.
A soft murmur of snickers that went through the class; a barely whispered "look at Black." In the doorway Hermione just stood there, lowering her head. She looked miserable. Sirius glared at the ones who were snickering. Even though they quieted down right quick, Lily kept on glaring at him. She'd always had it in for him because of Snivellus, and Sirius knew that she thought he was up to no good. He usually was up to no good, but this time it was different.
"Running late, between classes—" Hermione was mumbling. Slughorn chortled good-naturedly and waved her forward, his chipmunk cheeks rosy with exertion.
"It's alright my dear. Come, we must get to today's lessons. Now, let's find you—ah! Sirius, my boy. I see you have an empty spot next to you, and no partner yet. Well, what a surprise. Come now, Ms. Granger. Please take a seat next to Mr. Black."
From where he was sitting, Sirius saw Hermione visibly wilt; he saw her shoulders sink and her limbs tremble, and felt something brittle inside of him crack. He didn't like rejection. He didn't like being tossed aside. Not her, never her, she was different, she had to be different—
James caught the wilting too. His friend sent him a sympathetic glance. Sirius just grit his jaw and tried to ignore him. Hermione was uncomfortable around him, and even more uncomfortable around his friends. It had to be his last name—someone had told her something about him—but he was going to make it up to her. She was hurting, and he was going to make things right. Even if he felt like shite while doing it.
Like she was weighed down by a thousand pounds of proverbial baggage, Sirius watched as Hermione awkwardly re-shouldered her bag to walk down the aisle. She moved quietly without looking up. As she neared their desk, Sirius shuffled further back so she'd have some more room, but as she drew close he noticed how her balance seemed to be more off than usual; how she was carrying all her books and her bag on one arm, the other held stiff and close to her chest.
No one seemed to notice the discomfort besides him, but Sirius saw everything, and what he saw make him ill. He almost got up to help her then—nearly scrambled out of his seat to take her books and her school bag, to lessen the weight—but from the way that she tensed it was clear that she was already anxious, so he remained where he was; twitching and shuffling, his blunt fingernails digging into the wood on his desk. Merlin, how he wanted to reach out and touch her. He'd do anything.
Sirius tried not to stare at her too hard as Hermione slid into the seat beside him; he tried to act as nonchalantly as possible, but when she almost dropped her books he finally moved. Muttering a quick "here," he shifted forward, quickly stopping their downwards tumble before stacking the textbooks on the desk.
Hermione stood beside him, letting out a shuddering breath as she slowly slid her school bag off her good shoulder. Her gaze seemed to be focused on his hands.
"Thank you, Sirius," she said. Her tone remained soft and reserved.
Sirius felt his heart clench in a spasm, because it was too small to contain the feeling that was building within. Always, Hermione said his name with a strange sort of familiarity—a distant kind of warmth—and she'd never forgotten it. Not once. Sirius swallowed and nodded his head, but he said nothing more because he didn't trust himself to speak. He'd known her for less than two weeks, but already he adored her. James was right. He had it bad. Merlin, he was done for.
"Alright class, get out your brass scales and cauldrons! We're making Essence of Lethe today—very dangerous if you add the wrong amount of poppy, so make sure you watch your partner. We don't want anyone getting hurt now, do we?"
The class filled with the sound of students pulling out their supplies, the clatter of cutting utensils and cauldrons; the soft swiff of fingers flipping through paper to the appropriate page in their books. Remus and Peter were working together, and Lily was concentrating. James, not so much. Sirius had watched Hermione like a hawk all week, but he'd never worked with her until now. He was so nervous his mouth was dry; he'd never been this nervous around a girl before.
"Can you set up the cauldron?" Hermione asked quietly. Sirius felt the air leave him in a rush. He was shite at measuring and shite at behaving, but he could totally handle physical tasks. The only reason he had taken Potions was because Lily had wanted to, so James had wanted to, and the Marauders did everything together.
"You're smart, Mr. Black." Professor McGonagall had told him at the end of fifth year, in what now seemed like a lifetime ago. Her expression had been somewhat sad. The witch had delicately dropped his O.W.L results onto her wooden desk, the aging paper scribbled with E's and O's.
Sirius had clenched his jaw and slumped in his chair, looking despondently out the window.
"You're incredibly smart, but you never apply yourself. You're aimless." Sirius was a lot of things in life, and disappointment was definitely one of them.
He set up the cauldron. Hermione went to the front of the class and grabbed some St. John's Wort and essence of Rosewater, returning to their desk and laying the shriveled yellow blossoms out in a row. Her face was hidden by her hair as she bent over her textbook, her fingers nearly as pale as the paper as she flipped through the pages. Hermione was short, but not tiny; small enough that Sirius could see clear over the top of her head, the crown of hers coming up to his shoulder, but no more.
For a second he just stood there, lost in dreamland as he wondered what it would feel like to hold her. He was rudely jolted out of his thoughts when he saw her reach into her bag and pull out her wand. It was curving, dark thing, and strangely wicked looking.
Sirius blinked, doing a double take at the familiarity of it all, then felt a bit of bile rise in his mouth. The wand was almost a mirror image of Bella's.
"That your wand?" he asked. Hermione stiffened; her shoulders grew tight as she nodded mutely, reaching into her seemingly endless bag to grab more supplies. Sirius didn't know why, but he didn't like it. Not one bit. It didn't suit her, the wand—it looked too Black-like, and cruel. Merlin, he did love imaging his last name as hers, but something about the situation seemed off. It made him feel all twisted inside.
"It looks like my cousin's," Sirius said without really thinking it through, then added "Bellatrix, that is. She graduated before I came here." Another pause. "She's a bitch."
"Isn't that the truth," James piped up. Remus grinned, and Peter gave a nervous smile.
"Language!" snapped Lily.
"What?! It's true."
Hermione abruptly dropped her supplies.
The mortar and pestle she'd been removing from her bag tumbled from nerveless fingers, a shock like a spasm running along her back. Sirius quickly darted forward, grabbing the mortar before it fell to the floor. It had to be her bad arm, he thought; she'd been holding the mortar with that. It must have been causing her a world of pain, because he'd never seen her look so shaken.
Hermione was frozen, her fingers curled stiffly as she blinked owlishly at nothing. This close—so close he could almost rest his head against hers—she smelt like pine needles. Like fir trees and mulch and the dampness that was endemic to the Forbidden Forest. Sirius knew she'd been out there again, but he didn't comment on it. Not in public. He wanted to ask her about her arm, though; maybe if he knew what was bothering her, he could filch some pain potions from the infirmary. Leaning back to give her a little more space, Sirius set the mortar and pestle on the desk with a clack. Hermione remained alarmingly pale.
"Thank you," she said quietly, not looking his way. Even though he knew it wasn't the time, Sirius began wondering what he could do to get a thank you kiss instead. Her lips looked so soft, and he couldn't help it.
"No problem, Luv," he said, and she swayed on her feet. They didn't talk about the wand again. Sirius just kind of forgot about it.
The first part of Potions class went well enough. Hermione was reserved and definitely skittish, but incredibly efficient and smart. Without seeming to realize it, she began dolling out instructions to him in that quiet, semi-distracted way of hers, and Sirius just followed like a clockwork golem, desperately eager to please and simply happy to be around her.
It was almost uncanny, how she managed to handle him; she didn't look at him, or interact much at all, but Hermione seemed to know exactly what to say in order to calm him down. They worked well together, or at least Sirius thought so. He wished he had more classes with her.
"How are you liking Hogwarts?" he asked as he de-headed the poppies, before chopping them in half with a careful shick of the knife. The pieces were the perfect length on all sides, his workstation fastidiously neat.
"Huh?" Hermione said, looking up from stirring the potion. Sirius knew it had been an accident, because almost immediately she looked away. He tried to tamper down the hurt. He didn't understand why she was so uncomfortable around him.
"You finding everything alright?" he explained again.
"Yes," she said, nodding once. Her tone was soft but definitely distracted, and he got the distinct impression that she was thinking of something else. Sirius watched the way Hermione learned over the cauldron, her light brown curls tumbled down her back and across her shoulders. Her eyes were big and brown like a doe's.
"Do you like Quidditch?" he asked, searching for a safe topic to break the silence. Hermione was still paying attention to him, but he wanted her undivided attention; he was desperate to talk to her but scared of it too, because he was self-aware enough to realize their connection was fragile.
The witch didn't pause with her clockwise stirring, leaning further over the pot. The potion inside was thick and viscous and the color of puce. Sirius leaned closer, ostensibly to take a look, but mostly in the hopes of coping a feel. Hermione was perfect; perfect at everything, really, but at the moment he thought she was the perfect size for holding. His mind was desperately racing for an excuse to touch her.
"Not really," said Hermione. "I'm no good with a broom." Her voice jolted him back to reality, and it was only then that Sirius remembered what he'd asked. She didn't look at him, but he could hear the pang of sadness to her voice. His stomach dropped because of it.
"Are you afraid of heights?"
From where he was standing—half backed away, half leaning over her—Sirius could see her lips twist into an uncomfortable grimace.
"There are worse things to be—" Hermione began, then abruptly stopped. She visibly hunched in on herself, her gaze growing distant and dull. Sirius felt like shite. He was shite, and where were his bloody manners; he shouldn't have said something like that, especially when she had the shakes.
"I can take you up, if you want," he offered.
"Up where?"
"On the broom, help you get used to it. I'm on the Quidditch team." He let out a laugh. "I swear I won't drop you." He'd hold on to her forever.
"Thank you, Sirius," Hermione said softly. "That's so kind of you."
And just like that, Sirius was floating.
He was in a dreamland utopia, the proverbial cloud nine. She'd called him kind, and he wanted to kiss her, right there in class. Sirius hated his name, but he loved how she said it, as if they were the oldest of friends and they'd known each other for years.
He was so deep in fantasy-land that he didn't notice her shifting—not until he felt her shoulder bump against the front of his chest. Sirius looked down, then saw how she flinched. He quickly stepped back, but Hermione move faster, nervously scooting out from behind their desk.
"Can you watch the pot for me?" she asked, not looking up. "I just need to get something from the front." Sirius nodded immediately, but already Hermione was stepping away and making her way towards the far end of the class. Sirius kept watch on the cauldron as best as he was able, but he was already distracted by the flitting way that she walked. It was only with a whack to his head from Remus that he managed to remember that he was making a potion. Sirius stirred it just in time to keep it from boiling over.
"Never," Remus said, and his tone was thick with amusement. "Never going to hear the end of this."
"Sod off."
James cackled. Across the aisle, Parkinson bit her full bottom lip and brought down her knife on the poppies with a thwack.
Hermione was taking awhile to return to her seat. She seemed to be a fastidious sort of person however, and Slughorn had taken an interest in her on account of her intelligence, so Sirius paid it no mind. When he heard the Professor's daft chortling erupt from the front of the class, along with an ecstatic "wonderful, my dear!" he went back to stirring their pot. He didn't really pay attention to what Slughorn was saying, and soon he'd managed to tune out the wizard's babbling, letting it fade into background noise.
Hermione would be back soon. She would be back, and then she would be standing close enough for him to smell her hair. Maybe he could even touch her hand. Sirius was thinking of asking Hermione out to Hogsmeade that weekend. He hadn't been kidding about the broom bit, and he really wanted to try it now, just to see if he could make her smile.
He was rudely awoken from daydreaming by someone jabbing him in the back. Again. That time Sirius slammed his wand down on the desk, gripping the ledge of his seat and turning all the way around as he glared with a distinctive lack of amusement towards his friends.
"What?" he snapped, loud enough for the other students to hear. Even as he turned around James began frantically gesturing towards the far left side of the room.
"Look! Look!" he was mouthing. Beside his best friend, Lily's face was a perfect picture of distress. "Look! Snivellus."
Ah. That was why Lily was so upset. A sneer automatically tilted his lips and Sirius turned, only to feel his leer abruptly fall away to be replaced by shock.
Hermione Granger was talking to Severus Snape.
The two of them were standing not that far from each other, with Snivellus behind his desk, all hunchbacked and leering. Hermione on the other side, clutching a handful of herbs as she stared towards the floor. Sirius couldn't hear what they were saying over the hustle and bustle in the classroom, but from the gentle expression on Hermione's face the conversation didn't seem to be one that was forced.
Snivellus tilted his head to the side, his stringy black hair falling across his forehead. He was staring at the witch with what might have almost passed for fascinated revulsion. Sirius looked to Hermione, then looked to their teacher, desperately hoping that what he was seeing was some sort of lie. Slughorn, the doddering old fool, was talking to another girl. A sick feeling crawled its way up his throat, and when he turned back, Sirius was hit with the taste of bile on his tongue.
He watched the way that Hermione stood there, angling herself towards Severus Snape; he saw the way that she talked to him, looking down and tucking her hair behind her ear. He could tell Snivellus was saying something nasty—his mouth was moving too quickly, his lips forming in a cruel sneer—but he couldn't make out the words. Automatically Sirius took a step forward, intending to stop him, because how dare that grease-ball talk to Hermione Granger. How dare he be cruel to her.
But then Hermione seemed to respond, just as quick. Although Sirius couldn't hear what they were saying, Snivellus didn't sneer again. His expression fell into something neutral.
Merlin take him, he liked her.
It was a sham; a travesty of epic proportions. A terribly play where he was watching Beauty and the Beast cavorting about. Hermione was being careful not to look Snivellus in the eye, and she wasn't letting him touch her, but the rage. The rage was bubbling in Sirius' throat, hot and thick and stinging like mother-dearest's unforgivables. He couldn't bear it. Not again. His hand was burning and his heart was pounding so fast it felt like everything would explode. There was a voice in his head, cackling like Bella, and oh, Sirius though. Oh, oh , oh, this is what it had felt like for James with Lily. No wonder he'd been so angry. No wonder.
"Sirius! Your hand!" Remus hissed, but Sirius wasn't breathing properly now. In and out his shaky gasps went, but in and out much too rapidly, his vision dissolving into spots. It was glass. Glass cutting into his skin at the sight of seeing them together, acid burning his throat. He hated them. He hated her, how could she leave him—
Sirius didn't realize something was wrong until there was another chorus of "your hand!" Then Remus was reaching across the aisle to shake him out of it, just as his potion bubbled over.
There was puce. Dark, viscous fluid absolutely everywhere, bubbling and popping across the desk before trailing messily onto the floor. Hermione looked over just as their spilt potion made a loud pop. Bits of it went flying upwards to smack against the ceiling, before dripping down into clumps of unrecognizable goop on the tiles.
A chorus of nervous laughter followed, along with startled gasps of surprise. Sirius' hand was bleeding along the underside of it from where he'd dug his hand into the sharp edge of the seat.
"Goodness, Mr. Black!" Slughorn exclaimed from the front of the class, both of his pudgy hands coming to rest on the front of waistcoat. "Whatever happened to your potion?" His expression was one of alarm.
Even as he spoke, Hermione began striding over. Sirius was too upset to pay attention to her.
"Sorry Professor," he bit out, leaning unsteadily backwards and letting go of his chair. He clenched his hands into fists, but he could still feel the blood dripping out between his fingers. "I lost track." It was all he could do not to fly into a fit of rage; his jaw set so tight his teeth nearly cracked. Why? Why was he being rejected for someone like Snivellus? Sirius was no good with rejection, he hated rejection, and Hermione, Hermione with Snape—
"No matter, my dear boy." Slughorn said, quite congenially. "Just clean up the mess, and start again."
Remus and Peter gave him sympathetic glances. Sirius just stared at his desk, fumbling around for his wand to perform a quick Scourgify. He hated potions. He should have told James to shove it when they'd all agreed to take it, and Hermione—
Sirius felt a pressure on his arm, ever so light. It wasn't until he caught a whiff of pine needles that he realized that Hermione was back and standing right next to him. Her bad hand was on his arm, barely a presence through the thick fabric of his robes, but all of a sudden he was intimately aware of her; from the individual strands of her hair to the way the low light of the dungeon glanced off the shallow bridge of her nose. Her gaze was still averted, a collection herbs clutched in her free hand.
"May I?" she asked, all soft and polite. Sirius was still struggling to string one word into the next. When his brain failed to process what she was saying, Hermione re-shifted the supplies in her free hand to keep from dropping them, then nodded with her head to his bleeding palm. "Do you want me to fix it?" she said.
Petulantly, trying to bite down on his anger and mostly failing, Sirius snapped out a nasty "if you want." Almost immediately he regretted it, because Merlin help him Hermione was so sweet, and of course she knew nothing about Snivellus. The witch was going to end up hating him. He was being such a Pure-blood prat.
Instead of drawing back, however, Hermione's expression fell into something banal. Without saying much of anything, she magicked away the mess on their desk with a flick of her wand, then awkwardly placed their new supplies down onto the now-clean surface. She reached out and grabbed his hand, her nasty-looking wand held at the ready as she held his palm in hers.
Hermione's hand was soft and smooth, and noticeably smaller than his. Immediately Sirius' brain shut down, because she was touching him. She was touching him first, and Merlin she was so pretty and so smart and he was so sorry for snapping at her, and those fingers look at those tiny fingers just look how they moved—
Hermione uncurled his fist and performed a quick healing spell with a swish of her wand. As she did, there was a tingling sensation along his palm. The cut healed up damn-near perfect, and when she was finished she used another Scourgify to get rid of the rest of the blood.
"Does it hurt?" she asked him, still not looking him directly in the eye. Sirius nodded numbly, then nearly had a heart attack when she abruptly re-gripped his hand. She swiped her thumb along the underside of his palm where the cut had been, as if looking for any additional damage. Her expression was thoughtful, her tone inexplicably sad.
"You were never very good at taking care of yourself," she said, barely audible. Sirius still heard it. He then he decided he'd heard wrong, because his brain was short-circuiting and he was unable to make sense of her words.
Hermione dropped her hand and went back to brewing their potion, moving as quickly as before. Sirius just watched her, utterly entranced. Hermione, Hermione, Hermione Granger. Her name repeated like a metronome inside his head, and she was all he could think of. Sirius liked her enough to date her for an entire year. He was done for.
"Can you help me with the cauldron again?" Hermione asked. She made no mention about Snivellus; no remark about how Sirius had ruined their assignment for the day. Her face was exceedingly pale though, and she seemed a bit unsteady, which was enough to knock him out of his day-dreaming. Fully contrite, and feeling rather horrible for being so spiteful, Sirius nodded mutely, stepping forward to help her.
The second time they made the potion the process was much smoother than before. Hermione worked quickly, and by the end of the class they had a brand new Essence of Lethe; gleaming and dark and tucked away inside a glass phial, which they handed in for marking. Slughorn grinned when they did.
"Splendid, Ms. Granger, Mr. Black! Absolutely splendid!" Declared their Professor, but Sirius didn't care one whit. It wasn't until after class—when Hermione had uttered a quick goodbye and all but fled from his presence, that Sirius realized the itching sensation he'd felt down his spine when she'd healed him was unnerving familiar. It was almost identical to the feeling he got when Bellatrix was trying to hex him.
Author's Note
Thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed! I'm glad you're all enjoying the story so far. Side note: I've fixed up some spelling errors in Chapter 1, but nothing major.