CHAPTER VII
Disclaimer: As always, all recognizable things belong to J.K. Rowling.
A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who reads, and takes the time to leave a re- view. Special thanks to Saint Taylor and Daphne (guest) for their long reviews and continuing support! :D So sorry for any delay. I have picked up some freelance writing work and was too preoccupied with that for days at a time. I hope this chapter is all right and I will try not to take as long to update the next one!
A/N 2: I apologize for any stupid spelling or grammar errors. This chapter is over 12,500 words long and my eyes glazed over every time I tried to proofread. And like I've said before, Ulysses writing app makes it difficult to catch errors because it doesn't underline any awkwardness.
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And then it's like Hermione and Remus do their absolute best to ignore each other once they've been arraigned by Sirius to come inside yet again. And to think about it, the night has grown much too cold to sit outside and have a normal conversation anyway, so there is no reason for the both of them to be out there to begin with, and Hermione feels a creeping and shameful blush spread from her cheeks all the way to her chest.
A brief dalliance into this cold night is reserved only for those wishing to pop outside to smoke a cigarette (which is madness of its own, as the smokers are clearly inside, too afraid to try this crisp and piercing gale of the night), or hoping to gulp down one strong and deep breath of fresh air away from the collection of inebriated individuals inside. Which she has already done. And which he has already done.
Yes, Sirius is correct in everything he doesn't say to Hermione or Remus when he tells them to come in: they should have been back inside long ago, but the reason nobody seemed to notice their absence is the mere fact that they were just too may other people in attendance to even notice that the birthday girl and Sirius's own best friend were missing. Sirius doesn't offer then any kind of look as he leads them away from the door and Hermione chances a glance at Remus. His hands are shoved deep into his trousers' pockets and his jaw is clenched so tightly that he's probably grounded some back teeth into dust.
She reaches out her hand to touch the back of his arm, really going to tug at his cardigan's sleeve to get his attention now that it's harder to hear inside with all the bustling sounds and now that Sirius is a bit ahead of them and shouting something at Harry, who is behind the bar and chugging a glass of ice water.
Her fingertips just brush the soft fabric of Remus's cardigan, not even enough for him to really notice, and yet he still steps ahead of her as though jolted or shaken by something he'd rather not have encountered. And Remus begs off, moves away from her with a shadow of a stern look she can tell just from his profile as she attempts to move near him. He's saying that he needs to find Dora, and Hermione lets him go without saying another word to him, leaving a rude, stifling air between the both of them. Hermione thinks it completely obnoxious that this is something he's done to her on another occasion.
She scowls at his back, not caring in the slightest that this makes her somewhat childish. She especially doesn't mind the deep-seated pettiness that has taken over in her hopes that he chances a look back at her to catch her impudent expression directed towards him. She should be able to have that after all of this hot and cold nonsense with the way he switches his temperament when interacting with her. Now she's sure he won't speak to her for a whole other week. At the very least, Hermione is sure they will ignore one another for the rest of the time they're at her party.
Fine.
She should really find Ron herself anyway, but Sirius has now removed himself from Harry, and is steering her in the direction of the kitchen (that he and Harry are al- ways disappearing into whenever they're working) behind two swinging doors.
By now, before she escapes this main room entirely, she's noticed that Sirius has absolutely lost control of the party and many guests have shed any hope of holding onto whatever dignity and decency they came with for the rest of the evening. Opposite the direction she's being taken in, she notices that someone has managed to knock some chairs over and that some of these chairs are missing legs and two obnoxious, very young looking guys are playing swords with them. Someone had torn down the really neat string lights that Sirius managed to hang upon the wall and ceiling at the end of last week. She wrinkles her nose at Sirius's terrible idea to pass out her birthday fliers to just anybody, which everybody has seemingly interpreted as an invitation to a free-for-all.
"Sirius, there are people behind the bar." And not just people, but absolute animals, for they had began drinking straight from the liquor bottles left unattended. Not that Harry was necessarily doing the greatest job in the world guarding their products. He was the one who actually started the whole letting people come behind the bar, kicking it off with a keg stand challenge that everyone has failed so miserably and to the point that people are running to the restrooms or outside to relieve themselves and their soured stomachs.
Hermione cannot believe how quickly this has turned into a college party appropriate only for much younger students than she and her other friends.
"Who am I to stop people from having a great time?" And in this moment, she knows that Sirius is very close to surpassing the slightly intoxicated threshold, heading straight into being as belligerent as everyone else, although he's still in the silly phase of being tipsy.
"I just don't want you to be out of a ton of money."
"I cleared out the good stuff earlier and everything back there is totally watered down. Come now, kitten, you didn't think I wouldn't know something like this was going to happen?"
He squints down at her and shakes his great shaggy head. "I'm pleasantly disappointed in you, Hermione. You don't know an old marauding git such as myself didn't do things like this when he was younger?"
"Please don't refer to yourself in the third person. The last time his happened, it didn't stop for a week."
"I will never stop doing something that absolutely grates on you." He flings an arm around her shoulders and pulls her tightly to his side, sending her off balance to where she presses her hand into his chest to steady herself. He covers that hand affectionately. "You should have known that the moment you adopted me."
She falls out of his embrace and by this point, they've just been standing in the threshold of the kitchen, Sirius leaning into the flimsy and wavy door with great difficulty, as Hermione needed to use her own hand to steady him by bracing his other arm. She is instantly reminded of one of their earliest encounters at the Longbottom's grocery shop and being shouted at for letting all the cold air slip out due to Sirius's in- capability to properly utilize doors.
"Sirius Black, in or out? Please."
His face shines with an adolescent glee at her phrasing and she doesn't think she's ever seen a grown man look more like a teenager than in this moment. He goes to open his mouth and say something absolutely asinine, but a golden joke in the style of sophomoric humor. Hermione reaches upward, standing on the tips of her toes, and covers his big, fat mouth with her small hand. He stumbles backwards and into the kitchen, tugging her along with him, but not before licking her palm to make her let go, and earning a swift swat on the shoulder in return.
Sirius is, of course, roaring with laughter—the swat was absolutely worth it, just like all the ones that came before this one and for much worse reasons that smarted much harder and for much longer. He'd told her at some point that he would love to have a tattoo of her handprint, and she jokingly asked where he'd put it.
'Would you keep it close to your heart?' She'd asked a couple weeks ago, tugging down his shirt gently as he lay stretched out in her armchair one evening. Only he'd jerked away from her, hopped to his feet as though scorned, and buttoned his shirt up to the top-most button and left her alone for the rest of the day. They haven't spoken about the incident since, and it was truly the only area of actual conflict they'd experienced in their relationship thus far.
Hermione shakes her head of the memory as Sirius ushers her forward and further into the kitchen, which is much larger than she expected it to be, actually. His hand is ghosting his finger tips close to the small of her back, 'in the appropriate space meant for a friend to touch,' Hermione thinks to herself, cataloguing this in her memory to tell Lily later, should the older woman bring up more of her strange and intimate musings about the nature of Hermione and Sirius's relationship.
'Not for whatever reason,' she thinks, 'Lily's heard James's account of how you and Sirius are. Have you been giving him the wrong impression all this time?' She bites her lip in worry, but doesn't allow it to permeate her thoughts too much and in front of too many people who will no doubt ask her a barrage of questions about her well-being should they see her upset on her birthday of all days.
Then Sirius's hand is squeezing gently at the top of her shoulder and shaking her out and away from her thoughts.
"Can I start swatting you for all the times you don't pay attention to me?" Sirius is asking, grinning down at her in such a mischievous way that would make him the envy of all trouble makers, and for a moment it looks like he's slightly sobering up.
And for a moment, it looks like there's a knowing glint in his grey eyes, as though he can read exactly what she's thinking about and what she's feeling.
She wants to tell him, 'No, swatting is my thing. Find your own thing, Sirius,' but all she does is give him a small smile.
And so it is and so as she has expected, the only people crowded around the cake in the small kitchen at the back of the bar are some of the people closest to her in this new town, in this new home, and in this new life: Sirius, Harry (swaying and finally torn away from his previous antics), Draco, and Luna.
Ron is standing at Harry's elbow, grinning sheepishly at her through reddened eyes. He offers a small wave at her before the few of them in the kitchen sing at happy birthday to her, and when she leans in to blow out her candles, she wishes that her relationships would be a bit easier to handle, especially in the coming weeks with exams coming up so soon.
They each get a slice of cake: it's strawberry with a cream cheese icing and Luna said she baked it fresh earlier in the afternoon as her birthday gift for Hermione, and she tells Luna what a thoughtful gift it was.
"Homemade gifts are the best kind of gifts," Hermione assures her friend, scraping the last bits of icing off the paper plate with her plastic fork before throwing the plate and the fork in the rubbish bin.
"Wish I would have known that before I spent good money on you, Granger," Draco drawls before tossing a small wrapped box in the air.
She catches it in time and gives him a small smile. "Draco, I'm surprised you thought about someone else for once in your life."
"Such a touching sentiment, Granger. Stop it. You're making me blush," he deadpans and flaps his hand at her in annoyance. "Please, open it. Everyone is close to death with all their anticipation."
Luna laughs at this like it's the first funny thing she's ever heard in all of her life.
Hermione makes quick work of shredding it open, tossing the emerald and silver striped paper into the trash. Hermione reads the top of the box and blushes furiously, covering the lid with a palm.
"Oi! What is it?" Sirius screeches, demanding to know.
"Draco!" She chastises him and Draco doubles over, holding his stomach from laughing, grinning so hard that he's hurt his face.
"I don't care how many swats I get over this; it was totally worth the look on your face."
Sirius has managed to back Hermione into himself, his chest against her shoulders, his long arms flailing around her front and he manages to wrench Draco's gift from her. "ONE HUNDRED QUESTIONS ABOUT SEX, THE GAME?!" Sirius holds the box over his head like a coveted trophy and Hermione stretches to her tiptoes, hopping slightly to get it back.
"Give. It. Here. SIRIUS!"
Sirius hands it back to her, and then says to Draco. "Knew I liked you for a reason, mate. Didn't know I'd eventually love you."
Ron looks confused, but is laughing with the rest of them after Sirius revealed what the gift was. "Why did you get her that?"
"Chill out, Red," Draco tells him. "I'm not trying to woo your girl. First time we ever met, she told me she's nothing but boring. I thought this would be funny. Something to make her light up."
"We are playing this. If not tonight, then in the near future," Sirius vows.
Hermione rolls her eyes. "Then you hold onto it." She shoves it into his chest, her blush ebbing away, and is now able to laugh with the rest of them.
Harry steps forward and gives her something a little bit bigger, but thinner. "It's not much, but I remember what you said about wanting to do something fun. Like, developing a new hobby. I thought you'd like this."
Harry has wrapped the gift up in older newspapers, and she smiles at how cool it looks. It's a calligraphy set that includes a few different sized nibs and several ink re- fills.
"I love it, Harry. Thank you."
"I know how to do it a bit," he says eagerly, moving closer to her to show her the little booklet it comes with and the basic fonts to learn, pointing at some. "I can do these, but not most. I thought maybe one Saturday you aren't too busy we could work on this at the coffee shop?"
"Oh, that'd be great, Harry. Thank you. I love it." She repeats, throwing her arms around his neck to give him an affectionate hug.
She shoves this gift into Sirius's chest and he makes a face. "I'm your table, then?" "Shush." Ron hands her a gift bag and inside, every inch is stuffed with her absolute favorite sweets. "Thought you'd like a massive stash of snacks for when you're spending too much time at the library." He shrugs, and his ears are pink.
"Oh, Ron. That's very, very sweet. I'm excited about these. Although, it'll be really hard to not eat them all in one go." She offers him a small smile.
He gives her a crooked smile in return. She sits the bag down on a nearby counter, and pulls him into a hug, his arms so low upon her waist, his hands may as well have been gripping her ass. She pulls back and goes to kiss him on the cheek, but he turns his head last minute and catches her lips in his in a very wet kiss. Draco fake-retches over the sight and Luna, again, laughs at him as though he is the cleverest man in the world.
"What'd you get her, Sirius?" Ron asks when he pulls away from her at last.
Hermione is blushing once more at their very public display of affection and she discreetly wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Everyday is a gift with me. My presence is her present."
Harry sighs heavily. "I apologize profusely for my godfather."
"I am an international treasure who is unappreciated in his time, Harry. Now, if everyone is finished with cake, I'll put the rest in the fridge in the back, and Hermione, you can keep your presents on the table in here so people don't bother them. You can get them tomorrow if you'd like." Sirius drops everything unceremoniously onto the table and Harry puts the cake away.
Sirius declares it's time for more drinks and dancing and Harry, Luna, and Draco follow him out quickly.
Hermione goes to leave, too, but Ron pulls her back by the hand and looks down at her. "Would you like to dance with me, 'Mione?"
"Sure, Ron," she says quickly, "but I'd like a drink first," and heads out, leaving him in her dust.
She hates to treat Ron like that, but what she hates even more is when they hit these rough patches and he does something incredibly sweet like it erases all the negatives, indicating that she must not be cross with him ever again. And, to be honest, she was highly uncomfortable during their kiss. She'd never felt like that with him before. It felt like a chore for the very first time, and it felt like it lasted too long.
She all but skips further away from the kitchen's door and has disappeared into the throng of people to where Ron can't find her when he emerges from the kitchen. Harry's pulling him behind the bar to do more silly-boy-drinking stuff, and Hermione hopes it's a while until he finds her again.
Sirius is over by the jukebox, clearing out the mess and repairing the sound system. When it kicks back on, she swears that she will leave if he is playing the Velvet Underground yet again. But he doesn't, and instead plays a mix of Motown songs that gets everyone out on the dance floor. Hermione flees from the oncoming rush and grabs at a bottle of vodka sitting by its lonesome in the corner and pours it into a glass from a nearby stack that Sirius has left on each table, along with many cans of soda to mix it with.
She makes her drink stiff and grimaces at the first sip, but relaxes into a nearby chair (that hasn't been turned over and mauled by the others) and watches the dancers, highly amused at Sirius shrieking every word to 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' while obnoxiously pointing as high as he can with his arm every time Aretha says 'high', his tight shirt pulled up and exposing his muscular and hairy belly that makes her blush and drink more and turn her attentions from him.
A wondrous sight, when the song shifts to 'My Girl' is Lily Evans Potter gripping her husband, James, as though he will float away from her any moment. Overtime they turn and Hermione catches glimpses of their faces, she can't help but smile inwardly over just how much like a pair of newlyweds they look like in this moment. That what- ever issues James was upset about weeks ago in the pub have evaporated for the time being, and he is able to dance peacefully (albeit, a bit handsy) with the woman he's always loved the best, whispering probably absurd things in her ear and looking too smug with himself when she laughs heartily at him in between soft, short kisses and shared gazes.
Amongst others who have already indulged too much too soon and who are al- ready on the way to being passed out at tables near and far, Hermione sees Draco and Luna involved in a slow dance of sorts. Draco is scowling, but he looks more pleased than he's seemed for quite some time, and she can't wait to give him a hard time about it in the near future—she wishes she had a camera to capture this moment.
Hermione's people watching takes her back to Harry's mother, who is now trying to flee the scene with Remus at her side, seeing her out.
It appears to Hermione that Lily is on her way out the door with the way she shoulders her purse and shuffles her feet in a way to show she's ready to go, and Remus, swaying ever so slightly on the tips of his toes, leans against one side of the door frame and presses his palm onto the opposite side to steady himself and smile down at Lily. He leans close to her and says something in her ear and when he pulls back, there is a beautiful and too wide mischievous grin on his face and Lily has thrown her head back in uproarious laughter.
She reaches out to him and caresses his cheek (and Hermione wonders, in a terrible ache, what his stubble much feel like under a smooth palm) in a friendly way. Lily stands on the tips of her toes, reaching to give him a kiss on his other cheek.
He steadies himself and looks down at her solemnly, when she wags a finger at him to place emphasis on whatever words she is saying to him, and he's nodding politely. He grins at her and his gaze moves from her to survey the room. And when the current song playing stops to transition to the next one in a twang and sensual bass riff, Chris Isaak's crooning, lamenting and melancholic Roy Orbison voice hums out, Remus's golden gaze locks onto Hermione's as the first lyrics spill out in an intimate utterance,
"The world was on fire and no one could save me but you. It's strange what desire will make foolish people do."
Hermione's breath catches in the back of her throat when she sees the way he subtly arches his eyebrow at her in an inviting and questioning way, but she does not drop the shared and connected look she has with him in this moment. And Remus doesn't look down at Lily when she pats his arm on her way outside. He puts his hands in his pockets and cocks his head to the side, studying her from afar and wordlessly asks her if he may approach her.
Hermione is standing at this point, clutching her drinking glass so tightly, basically holding on for dear life. She wishes to look around the room to see if anyone else is seeing what is happening to her in this moment, but she doesn't dare take her eyes off him. She's not sure if she's burning up from the opposite side of his heated look full of longing, or if it's the alcohol coursing through her, warming her stomach and her core.
She breaks their eye contact when she sees he's working his way towards her, and in a panic she surveys the room. But people are too enamored with whatever they're doing with themselves at the moment, and the dance floor is too packed with random and unrecognizable people. Remus pushes through them politely and finds his way to her in the dark corner she seems to have taken up residence in.
He's towering over her in an instant and he smells of sweet, dark whisky, and books, and teakwood, and his eyes show her that though he's a little unsteady on his feet, most of his mind is indeed still there. And it's clear for her, and he's here for her, even if this is the only true moment he can afford her.
"Miss Granger," he speaks softly, like she's used to hearing him and he's familiar and safe and wonderful, but also strange and surreal all at the same time.
"Professor," she almost stutters it out, but she gives him a sure smile.
He senses her nerves and smiles softly, a bit forlornly, at the title she still chooses to call him. He realizes that he's gazed at her for far too long, and it's not until near the song's end that he offers a timid hand, palm facing up, and asks, "Will the birthday girl grace an old man with just once dance this evening?"
She wants to tell him no. That both of their partners are here tonight. That she's not normally like this. And that if his benevolent ways are indicative of his true nature, then he must not normally be like this, either. That they're better than whatever strange, electrifying magic or attraction keeps crashing them violently into one another against their wills.
She wants to tell him that she never asked to meet him when she got accepted into this college. That nice men who give her naughty dreams shouldn't be allowed to melt her into muteness and ask for birthday dances. That men who look down at her with amusement dancing around their mouths and repressed desire flickering in their eyes, dressed like sleepy gentlemen should stay as far away from her as possible because they are dangerous and lovely and beautiful and underappreciated. That scholarly mentors with sad eyes and brilliant laughter lines and quiet voices like the sweetest lullabies have no business invading her space, her dreams, her center, and three o'clock in the morning ruminations.
And she wants to tell him that he's not old.
But, his height on her is intoxicating, and his slightly broad shoulders speak volumes of just how sheltered his embrace could make her feel. And his bowtie lay undone around his collar, and his shirt lay unbuttoned, exposing some of his chest and the hairs at the top, and his sleeves are rolled up to almost his elbow and she can see the muscles and ropes of scars that disappear under the shirt's folded fabric and beneath his watch's wristband. His face is handsome and youthful, but she knows his hands show just how much older than her he is, but in this moment, she does not care and for once in his life, he does not care.
He wants her to tell him to get away from her. To cancel his class for the rest of the semester so she never has to see him again. He wants to tell her that she's one of the worst students he's ever known in his life, including students he knew when he was a student and since he's been a teacher so that he can get rid of her, keep her away from his office. He wants to tell her he's been lonely for so long, that young women never invade the doldrums he's become ensnared in since his twenties. That small, bookish, and constantly curious young women with bright minds and faces full of divine light who ask all the right questions at all the wrong times shake him to his very core. That he's not been able to find her scents of vanilla and peppermint and old books and something he can't put his finger on in an all-in-one candle to burn in his office to keep him company when she's away. Yet, her scent lingers when she's not been around for days and he's never felt more alone and more accompanied at the same time.
He wants to tell her that young women who are headstrong and absolutely original in thought and opinion are dangerous. That said women are still sensitive enough to need someone sturdier and perhaps even a little broken and well-acquainted with hardship to pull them close at night. That she does get so close to him at night in his dreams. That his only wish besides to stay in them through all waking hours is to pull her right out of them and keep her with him for the rest of time.
'All that matters are the moments we are afforded in our lifetimes, and the only regrets that come at the end of them are when these moments are missed,' she tells herself, she tells him with her eyes, and he hears her.
He inclines his head forward and speaks softly in her ear, "Please allow me to be kind to you this evening, Miss Granger. No one will see. We're well-hidden."
And they are, and she lets him do as he asks, laying her small hand in his palm. He moves close and brushes his thigh against her as he takes her into his arms and situates her into an appropriate style of dance, leaving just enough space in between them to be decent. She moves her hand that he's not holding from his arm to his chest and her fingers and palm rest against him, light as a feather that they may as well not have been there, but he feels it with such a heaviness that is sinking him like a stone in the ocean, drowning him in her.
The song finally changes to Mazzy Star's 'Fade Into You,' and Remus chuckles softly, ruminating aloud upon the absolute cliché about it all. His chuckle masks his nerves (albeit, poorly) when she nods permission at him to move his hand to her waist to nudge her a bit closer still. Her fingers play with one of his bow tie ends and he looks down at her with such tenderness that she doesn't believe anyone's ever looked at her with, and he doesn't think he's ever had such a relaxed look on his face in all his life.
"Isn't there someone else you'd rather be dancing with?" Hermione is too nervous to speak above a whisper, as Remus's thumb traces a light pattern over her hand he's holding.
He pulls back to look down and her and offers a small, but sad smile. "She's off, still entertaining other people. Sometimes, I'm envious of her excitability and her extroverted side. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like her, but most of the time, I'm glad being stuck in my introverted rut. Do you ever feel like that?" He's swaying slightly and they both know that he's rambling, trying to catch words and nuances just to be able to hold onto this conversation for a millisecond longer than necessary, longer than appropriate, and in such a way to hopefully trick time into allowing the song to last longer than necessary.
"Ron's like that, too," she whispers, and this is the first flag to her that indicates that they are probably having a conversation that they shouldn't be having. Talking about things absolutely too personal. Heading toward some kind of point of no return. But, isn't that how conversations at parties go? Always straddling the border between appropriate/inappropriate, tame/wild?
"Isn't it impressive?" Lupin murmurs, his eyes fluttering shut as he shakes his head at himself for not just toeing, but crossing the line. His heart is in his throat when he feels her small, slender fingers smooth the bow tie end down against his shirt, daring a finger to touch where his chest is exposed, but hoping that it doesn't. "The degree in which one is ignored by another?"
Hermione doesn't know what to say, so she bites her lips and looks up at his golden brown eyes that seem less sad, and warmer than she can recall ever seeing them. She sighs softly before she finds the breath to ask him the question she's not been brave enough to ask even a close friend. Because she and Remus seem similar enough in their emotional intelligence, as well as their regular intellignece. Because they get each other without having to say anything at all sometimes, and she now realizes this is why he gets so frustrated with her presence sometimes. Why it's easy for her to get mad at him, and why it's easy to ignore one another at times.
"Profes—Remus?"
He raises an impressed eyebrow at her and smiles, leaning close enough that their foreheads could have touched in this moment. "Yes, Hermione?" There's the mischievous smile he gave Lily earlier, as though he's waiting to be sucked into something amusing and improper, like a prank or joke.
Her mouth is almost numb at him using her given name for the second time in the evening, but she recovers quickly, and asks with a more sure tone in her voice. "Have you ever felt so alone...when the person that's supposed to be closest to you…the person that's supposed to love you the best...is in the same room, and it's like you're not even there at all?"
Remus can only nod, transfixed by the way her mouth and lips move around each word in her question. "Truly and utterly." His hand makes a small fist, clutches her shirt's fabric at the small of her back in frustration, wanting to pull her closer, wanting to say something more eloquent, wanting to growl against her neck and consume her.
But the song ends and he removes himself from her so abruptly that she's dismayed.
He reaches into his back pocket to pull out the paperback he'd carried earlier. "Sirius told me that I should like to come and wish you a happy birthday. I didn't wish to come for reasons I'm sure are obvious to you by now. But I at least wanted to bring this to you. It's not new, but I thought it would mean something to you, all the same." He presses the book into her small hands. "I've had it a very long time, and I feel like you're one of very few who could truly appreciate it for what it's worth."
Hermione hears everything he doesn't say and swallows too hard, fighting at the sting of tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, and she notices his own have taken on a glassy, if not misty, look of their own.
"I understand...Professor."
He smiles sadly at her and nods before shoving his hands back into his pockets. "I'll see you next week, Miss Granger." His head is cocked to the side again as he studies her. It's how he holds himself in the classroom and in his office when he's listening to her intently with such pleased interest. "Please remember to return my floppy disks." And he turns from her, his posture seemingly defeated, as she mutters a 'yes sir,' that she's not even sure he's heard at all.
When he disappears through the crowd of people, Hermione doesn't even have a chance to peruse the book he's give her before a voice breaks her out of her reverie and momentary incapability to process what just happened to her.
"So, are you fucking him yet?" Ron comes up behind her and his voice is casual, but it's hard to miss the naked scowls he gives her for her faraway and almost daydreamy gaze she holds upon the book (without seeing it at all) that Professor Lupin just left in her possession.
"Excuse me?"
"Your teacher bloke. Harry told me that's who he was when we saw him saunter on up to you in your cozy little corner. I suppose that's what you're off doing all the time? Being shut off somewhere with him? And the reason why you aren't ringing me up as much. Makes sense. He's all you could talk about when you first got there." Ron's voice is flat when he tells her this and she knows he's only finding the most hurtful possible things to say because of his insecurity issues.
Hermione thinks to bring up the many incidents of Ron's absolutely flirty coworker, Lavender Brown, managing to come over and drink with him most nights until the crack of dawn.
But she doesn't bring it up. Because she doesn't wish to do this here.
"I am not sleeping with Remus...Professor Lupin. I would never. He is engaged. And at any rate, we ," she gestures at Ron and then herself, "are together." She hopes he didn't notice that slight beat, the slight hesitation, in between the latter two statements.
Especially the second to last one. If read any closer, it could totally insinuate that if she were available and if Professor Lupin were available, then she would be sleeping with him. But that isn't the case.
...Right?
"I'm sorry that I've given you the wrong impression, Ron." But Hermione knows this isn't even a half-truth. The inexplicable tug she's been feeling in development for her professor grows only more painfully stronger the more time she spends with him, regardless of whatever setting they're in. And she hates it. Because it's as equally terrible as it is wonderful. "You can stay here for the rest of the party if you like. But I'm going to head home. I'll leave the door unlocked for you."
Clutching her new (old) book in her hand, she brushes past him and makes a swift exit without saying goodbye to Sirius or any of the others, and nobody notices her absence for the rest of the evening.
XXXX
Lily doesn't go home after leaving Hermione Granger's birthday party, and instead finds herself with hands like ice as she grips her car's steering wheel while driving to the college.
The library stays open if not twenty-four hours, then until the dead of night for all the students needing a good, distraction-free space to get all their work done in. The students working the desk were so grateful for her when she told them to go home and get a decent amount of sleep—she knew for sure that they both had massive exams in the morning. Otherwise, they probably would have showed up to the party tonight.
Not many people are in the library at the moment, and it doesn't seem like many else are going to show up, and she thinks to shut it down come midnight. The lack of students is unusual, if not odd, but then she reminds herself where many of them probably are and for a moment, she feels terrible for Hermione. She didn't ask Sirius to throw that party and to basically invite the entire town. She'd have a stern talking-to with him later.
Lily doesn't mind pulling later hours at the library. If anything, it warms her to be here and reminds her of fond memories of when she was a student. Plus, with so few patrons needing her assistance and no staff and faculty to deal with so late after regular business hours, she could enjoy the time to get some reading done. Harry, who stays over most nights with her to keep her company, is still at the party. And James said he was going to leave for work sometime after she had planned to.
James has been pulling longer, later hours at the station lately. The police department at Godric's Hollow have been called into the neighboring city (that houses the hospital she used to work at) on a mysterious case of a disappearance. The city police believe that the young woman (eighteen or nineteen) ran away from home (to escape a particularly cruel boyfriend, according to her worried friends) and inquired James if anyone new in town has shown up.
The only unfamiliar young woman he could think of was Hermione, but she was older than the girl in question, and the girl had gone missing some weeks after Hermione showed up. James told the city's sheriff that he would make nightly rounds in their expansive wooded area, and James had left the party early to meet up with two other officers to do that.
Lily finds herself ignoring her book in favor of nervously twisting her wedding band around her finger with her free hand.
"Hello, Sev," Lily says, not looking back at him as she finishes organizing the re- turned books sitting on a nearby cart behind the front desk. Bless those student workers, but they really do make it harder on themselves, just throwing the books haphazardly onto the carts and then being confused later when it's time to return them to their proper floors and shelves without having sorted them properly.
"Good evening, Lily." He checks the battered watch on his wrist. "Though, I suppose, I could almost tell you 'good morning'?"
She turns to look at him and brushes her beautiful and gleaming red hair from her face with the back of her hand, then tucks a strand behind her ear. She chuckles at the sight of the slight smile playing at his mouth at his sarcastic remark about it being so late (or early), at half past midnight.
"Your boy was in here earlier."
"My boy?"
"Reggie Black."
Severus is taken aback at the way she's said his name like that. He isn't sure many people in his own circle (besides Narcissa Malfoy, at least) refer to him as that. Perhaps when they were younger, maybe.
"Not my boy." Severus mumbles this from behind his hand as his fingertips rub almost nervously at his face. He settles with his arms crossed over his torso, eyebrow quirked at her. "Burning the midnight oil, are we?"
Lily chuckles slightly at him, twirls her hair around a finger and then stops abruptly. Something about his deep voice rumbling out of his chest, even in such a snide remark, touches something inside of her that seems to have been missing for so long.
And then she realizes that it's just Severus.
Just Sev that she's missed, and she's glad that he's come, late as it is and all.
"No, I just happened to show up at Hermione Granger's birthday party and witnessed some of our student workers there this evening, absolutely unfit to come back to their late evening shifts, so I decided to pick up the slack for them."
Severus shakes his head. "Lushes, all of them."
"I'm surprised you didn't come."
"What? To the girl's party? Lily, when have I ever been one for a party?"
"You were that night after homecoming, when I stole my dad's bottle of scotch and we drank in the basement?"
"Until your sister barged right in and screamed for your parents to come kick me out."
"And you never drank ever again."
Severus's eyes go wide and he presses his long, pale fingertips against his chest and dark, black sweater. "I am astonishingly triggered every time I so much as hear the word 'beer'."
"You are incorrigible."
"And you still love it, apparently." Severus's mouth slams shut and he nibbles too hard on his tongue, causing a sting and a coppery taste of blood. 'Good,' he tells himself, 'you stop the shit right now. Or you'll be thinking of her all night. You've been doing so well since your last visit.'
God, how long has it been since they had any banter at all? She knows she's missed this as much as just talking to him about the books that they've been reading alone or together.
He chews at the bottom of his lip and slides one of the books he's pulled from the shelf upstairs and thumbs through it almost furiously, pretending to search for something.
"She's a nice girl," Lily tells him, wrinkling her nose at the off-putting titles. Some of what he studies frightens her, and she's told him before, especially when they were younger, but he rarely listened. "James and Sirius were right about her."
Severus hurts himself with how hard he rolls his eyes at the mentioning of the inescapable Sirius Black. "Why, pray tell, would I ever go to a function meant for a student that wasn't sanctioned by the school?"
Lily shrugs. "Minerva showed up, so did Albus. Remus was there."
A shadow of glee passes his face at the mention of Remus Lupin. "Lupin was there, was he?" Severus has heard whispers around the corridors of Lupin and the girl lingering, standing too closely, laughing too familiarly, and him bending too closely over her to examine her work. He especially knows how Miss Parkinson and Miss Greengrass feel about Miss Granger—their shrill giggles and too loud whispers permeate the walls of his office everytime they sit out in the corridor to wait on an advising appointment with a neighboring professor.
Though, he's not heard other faculty bring it up, whether it be in front of Lupin, or behind his back and to one another. Severus doesn't put much stock into gossip and assumes on the other girls' parts, it's for jealousy of Miss Granger's prowess in her doctoral program that they tease her so, and that this is the most scandalous (if you squint) thing about her. From what Draco tells him, Granger is quite afflicted with Chronic Boring Syndrome. And if an affair was to be had, she was probably going at it with local idiot, Sirius Black.
Lily finishes rooting through a nearby desk draw for a usable pen after scratching at loose sheets of paper with several others that quit working, yet are still in the pen cup. She looks up and scowls at him at his remark about Remus. Out of the entire gang, Remus was always the kindest to Severus (as far as Lily knew) and she loathed that Severus is still unable to cut Remus some slack just because of who Remus still associates himself with.
"Of course Remus was there," she snaps, and he actually jerks his head back in response to her sudden change in tone and scowls as he wraps his arms tighter around himself. She clears her throat before going on. "He's her mentor of sorts. And it was at Sirius's bar." Lily chides herself that Sirius would have corrected her that it's actually a microbrewery. "Tonks was there, as well. Hermione's boyfriend, too."
"A true buffoon, I assume."
"Didn't get to meet him, really. And why do you say that?"
Severus doesn't tell her that that was Draco's exact words to him about the boyfriend. What he tells her instead is, "That girl seems to be a magnet for the type."
Now it's Lily's turn to roll her eyes painfully, for it was a subdued jab at her husband and their friends. She pulls the stack of the remaining books he's brought her to herself, flips them all face down, and goes to the back of each to pull out the small card near the rear cover. Once retrieved, she slides all the cards over and hands him an ink pen with a twirling flourish and he rolls his eyes dramatically.
"I do loathe signing so many of these bloody things," he mutters as he slams the last book shut and exchanges it with her for the pen. He hunches over her desk, his hair falling into a curtain around his face, his nose almost pressed into the card, and scribbles out his name in his familiar spidery hand.
Lily fights down an absolutely absurd urge to push his hair from his face and instead settles upon teasing him, "Then maybe don't check so many out at any given moment. Pretty soon, you'll need a trolley to take them all with you and let me tell you, it is not in the library nor your department's budget to purchase one for you."
He slides the cards back to her to keep and nearly growls when she gives him the last one. "No worries, Potter," he drawls, signing with an impudent flourish, and drops the pen onto the desk in a clatter. "I, unlike many, have become a millionaire as a tenured professor. This establishment shall be swimming in more trolleys that it will know what to do with, all in due time."
"Yeah, yeah." She stamps the due dates onto each book's sleeve. "They say they're going to switch everything over to a computerized checking out system, but I'm fighting tooth and nail to make sure it never comes here, or to any other institution you'll ever work at." She does not bring up the usual response to society's ever-expanding presence of technology found in the abundant, fearful whispers of the Y2K crash or bug or whatever it is; she knows exactly how he feels about this 'nonsense', per their last coffee visit.
He glares at her, forcing back a titter of a laugh at this absolute cheek. He clears his throat and looks away from her brilliant eyes before they burn him alive, or warm his heart any more than they already have. "What did Reggie want?"
"He didn't tell you?" She furrows her brows as she pushes his books closer to him. "He said he was looking for something for you?"
"Haven't seen him in days," Severus lies.
He speaks far more often to Regulus Black than anyone else and they both know it. It's been like that since they were children, and especially after they dropped one another for years.
The last Severus saw of Regulus was back at Malfoy Manor the night he failed to properly seduce ('if that's what one could call it,' Severus thinks) Hermione Granger and bring her back to the Family. Tom Riddle—or 'Father', as he urges them all to call him; even worse, the entirely too laughable, 'Voldemort'—was severely displeased with Regulus that night and punished the younger man in front of his peers with a completely nude lashing like no other.
After everyone had gone to sleep, Regulus tore himself away from the manor and dragged himself to Severus's meager cottage (near shack, really). Severus's home is miles away from the manor, hidden in the woods that separated him from the expansive estate. Regulus was bruised and bloodied that night, from all sides, including his brother's monstrous friend.
Severus dragged the boy inside and proceeded to give him a bath of sorts. They sat in his kitchen and Severus dipped a washrag into a bowl of hot, soapy water, and gently scrubbed at Regulus's dangerously open skin until all the blood and grim was gone, with a grim look on his face, and with tears stained upon Regulus's cheeks.
'All over a girl,' Severus spat at his younger friend as he dabbed at his severely lacerated back, bottom, chest, and thighs with a stinging, but wondrous healing salve and soft cloth. They were on their knees, facing one another, and Severus tried his damnedest to avoid Regulus's eyes the entire time.
'Not just any girl,' Regulus's voice had been hoarse. And his soft, throaty and pained moans in response to their contact were almost erotic as Severus worked the medical ointment onto his friend after washing his bloodied and dirty wounds. Severus's ministrations brought his hands up to Regulus's collarbone, and Regulus took Severus's slim wrists into his hands, causing Severus to drop the dark and slightly damp cloth. 'Sev, what if we...what if we just left?'
'I have told you time and time again, Regulus, that I cannot leave. You know this bond is for a lifetime of service to...him.'
'I can't do this anymore, Severus,' Regulus whispered, his grip on the older man's wrists had slackened. 'I don't think I ever wanted to to begin with. This is madness, and none of it makes sense. I can't do this, Sev. I'm serious. I-I'm thinking of running out.'
Severus could not determine if the younger man was an absolute coward for his desire to flee, or, if this was the bravest way to reject the cult of Death Eaters. Severus resisted an urge to slap some sense into the younger man, but instead let out a hefty sigh, looking from his closed window and locked front door and back to Regulus. The silence was all consuming and maddening and he couldn't be sure if they were utterly alone with one another. He lowered his voice even more, if possible. 'Don't you dare say that to anyone else, anywhere else in this town. Do you understand me? We never had this conversation.'
Lily doesn't believe the lie Severus has told her in the slightest, as Severus is locked and lost in his own thoughts once again. And she didn't believe the lie that Regulus had told her when he mumbled that the book on the occult he checked out was something Severus needed for a class.
"It was good to see you, Severus," Lily says more sharply than she intended to. "But I'm about to close the library, so you may want to head out now."
He isn't taken aback at this at all and gathers his books up into his thin arms, and his stooped frame gives off an air of annoyance when he huffs out, "Always a pleasure," and swoops out of the room.
Lily sighs and places her head in her hands. Why is he always so difficult?
She goes through the motions of shutting the library down, and her mind is immediately brought back to James and the dance they shared at Hermione's party. It's been a terribly long time since they'd done anything like that together. How many times had they swayed to no music at all (except the music in their heads or whatever off beat melody James would hum) in their kitchen, in their bedroom, in the living room, in front of Harry when he was smaller?
Lily hasn't realized how much she's missed these things with her husband and recognizes that perhaps she's been too hard on him for too long. It has been entirely too long since he'd given Sirius the money to buy the old pub, and maybe it's time to let that go, she reasons with herself. Because ever since she found out about that, she isn't picking some battles and letting other things go: everything has been a constant struggle and she has been unwilling to cut him any slack at all, but James has been nothing but patient (much like when he was trying to court her, but in a more subdued way).
Perhaps they could talk about that tonight, she wonders, as she finishes locking up the library and heads back to her car on this too cold night. If anything, she'll be glad to have James in bed with her later to keep her warm.
XXXX
Remus has sobered up, standing at the bar while drinking copious amounts of water by the time Dora comes over to him and announces that she's ready to go and that she doesn't feel very well after drinking some foul concoction that Sirius made for her.
She leans into Remus as he leads her outside and she clutches at his arm while he unlocks the car and sees to it that she gets in all right. He sighs heavily on the way to his side and starts the engine without looking at her.
"I wondered if we could talk for a bit," Dora says, and she leans forward to shut the radio off, so all they are left is the near silence of the night and the wind whistling and the car's slight sputtering sounds.
Dora has a lot of words for him, and Remus is at that level of fatigue (socially, mentally, and emotionally) where he really just wants to eat a handful of something salty and then go to sleep. But as soon as Tonks mentions Hermione's name when he finally parks in front of their home and leads her to the front door, he perks up immediately and feels as if he could vomit.
He doesn't know how she's learned Hermione's name because she's never fully listened to anything he's ever told her before, particularly names. Although, Remus mentions Hermione often and talks at length about the work they've been doing together since the start of term. Remus just assumed that these occurrences in his life were just added to the list of things that Tonks knows about vaguely, but not enough to give some kind of detailed summary about what Remus is up to these days.
"I just don't quite understand something, but maybe you can help me figure it out, Remus." Her voice is sharp and devoid of any evidence that only moments ago, she was tearing up the dance floor and dwindling supply of alcohol with her cousin.
And the way she says this shames him for a multitude of reasons.
It doesn't really scare him, and her expression doesn't really scare him when he's turned on the lights to get good look at her. It's her tone that really bothers him...she seems to be going for some kind of schoolmarm scolding a small child in such a way to scare him half to death, like as though she's about to call his parents on him for behaving poorly. And if he wishes to be truly petulant with her in turn, he knows that he could bring up the handsy and inappropriate physical interactions she had with many other men this evening, but he doesn't bring it up. Because he wants to hear what she has to say to him and about him. He wants to hear what's been bothering her for weeks, but that she's been waiting on him to just randomly read her mind about and fix without her asking, without them communicating.
And in the back of his mind, he is daring her, he is begging her to leave him or tell him to leave her. Because he knows, and they both know, he is too cowardly to do it himself.
She is completely irate with him now in his silence, but he thinks he's being reasonable in avoiding a hasty reply. Because she has a bad habit of speaking with an upward inflection, ending most sentences on a high note that sounds as though she still has so much more to say. So he waits for her to say it. And, really, she should be used to his spacing out in these moments because they happen frequently enough that she should know this is just who he is by now.
But he's doing it again, the spacing out, and he knows that it lasts for too long this time, and that everyone else is always so painfully aware of it when it happens. And with her, in this moment, it is not the best time for it to have lasted this long. She thinks him to be recalling and revising all the lies he's espoused in recent months.
"Remus!" She actually snaps her fingers in front of his face.
He jerks back and blinks rapidly. "Go on, Nymphadora, and I'll see if I'm able to figure out this conundrum of yours. Of course, if I'm able to, I shall help you in any way that you need." He doesn't know whose voice this is, or where this thoroughly mechanical, near-rehearsed script has come from.
Dora does not seem to be calmed or even slightly impressed by it, for she simply waves him off and goes on. "I just don't understand how Hermione Granger just swooped into town one day and now, all of a sudden, she's everyone's golden girl. I haven't the faintest clue what Sirius sees in her at all."
Remus wants to tell her that she, Dora, is not as close to Sirius as she thinks they are. Remus wants to say many things in this moment. But all he is able to do is think back to his talk with Sirius days ago. Back when Sirius asked Remus how Hermione had been doing in class. And Remus called her fantastic. Not a fantastic student, or not that she's producing fantastic work. But that she's,
"Fantastic," he mumbles, staring at the floor before looking Dora straight in the eye to say, "Hermione Granger is fantastic. She is brilliant and kind, and she is a gift to the college. She is a breath of fresh air, and we are all just very glad to have her around. You should not fault others because everyone else adores them, Dora."
The silence is deafening and Remus hears a slight ringing in his ears as if he's been struck in the head by a sports bat or something.
Dora can only raise her eyebrows in an 'I'm-not-even-surprised' kind of way before letting out a rude chuckle. She licks her lips and squints her eyes at him as she chooses her next words carefully. "If you go to that conference with her in December, I will not stay with you, Remus."
"You know how important this is to me and my work." He doesn't know how he's able to make a coherent sentence when his entire stomach has dropped out of his body. In what? Relief? Dread? Some mourning sense of loss?
Dora holds up her hand, palm facing him to silence him (like she has done many times before), and cuts in. "How important your work is to you?" She pauses for a beat, wrestling with the next bit, "Or how important she is to you, Remus?"
Silence. And even worse one than before. The world could have ended outside at this very moment, and he wouldn't have noticed.
Dora scoffs in disgust, but her face is somewhat satisfied. "I knew it. Your face says it all."
And she doesn't seem angry, just disappointed. Which is worse. He'd rather her start shouting and throwing things, even a punch to his face.
Remus wants to tell her that Hermione is his student and his assistant and that nothing has ever happened between them. But that, like what Hermione has told Ron, is not even a half-truth. Remus thinks of a line from the Frankenstein novel in this moment and how it's never applied more to his life than now, 'There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.' He does not understand what Hermione did to him when she walked into his life, but the monster in his chest tells him she's what he's been moving toward and waiting for his entire life without even realizing it.
Remus tries to say something to her again, but Dora cuts him off once more. "I understood that you were a bit mysterious when I first met you."
'You first met me when you were a student yourself,' Remus thinks, but doesn't say aloud.
"But that's one of the things that attracted me to you," Dora continues. "And I know everyone has their secrets, but I've come to realize that you have too many. It's not just the new girl."
'It is,' Remus thinks again, but stays quiet.
Dora says, "You have too many secrets. Please don't think me a fool and that I never noticed that since we've been living together you don't come home for days at a time. It happens every month. I assumed you were out with your friends. But when I asked Cousin Sirius if you were with him one time, he'd told me he hadn't heard from you in days." She sits down at the edge of the coffee table and stretches her legs out, crossing them at the ankle, and runs her hands through her magenta hair. "And when I asked James at work, he'd said the same. And the more I thought about it, the more I was so sure that you had a girlfriend outside of town who you go to visit for days at a time. And I could almost live with that, live with you cheating on me. But what I can't deal with and what I can't put up with are the lies, and the way you hide things. You're supposed to love me more than anyone in the world, and you can't even trust me with your secrets."
He's crossed his arms in front of him, holding himself tightly, waiting for the rest to come.
"The cheating would explain why we haven't had any kind of sex in almost a year. And with her, it would explain why you haven't touched or even kissed me properly in months."
Remus is listening to everything she's saying, and he wishes he could tell her the truth. This is the first and only time he'd ever wished that. But she is not his mate, and she wouldn't understand or even believe him like his mate should. He'd tried imprinting upon her over the years, thinking if they were together long enough, he could trick his senses into letting it happen. But it just never happened. He can't even tell her that once he'd realized she wasn't his mate after all, it was painful for him to be intimate with her and that it felt so wrong—that it felt like he was cheating on someone he hadn't even met yet.
And how do you tell someone that your nature is twisted into something only meant to exist in fiction?
"I won't ask you where you go every month, Remus. Because I no longer care." She moves her hands from her hair and crosses her arms against her chest and gives him a pitying look. "But I will ask you to pack your bags and leave."
XXXX
Lights are flashing through Sirius's windows through the shut curtains and into his house on this dark and late hour. He rolls his eyes, assuming that some kids must be out playing a ridiculous game of flashlight tag or that someone is fooling around with their car's headlights. Sirius squints against the glare and turns his television on— something he doesn't really do that often anymore now that he has the luxury of spending his free time with Hermione when others are busy or pulling late hours at their respective jobs.
He stands with one hand on his hips, his free thumb mashing the remote control's buttons, flipping through channels, before settling upon an old cartoon about cave people or something. Not his favorite, but Sirius is one of those people who like to watch something while he's eating, and he needs to get something in his stomach. Like yesterday. He'd already eaten the rest of Hermione's birthday cake and then got sick on it at the bar.
He moves to the kitchen and roots around in a cabinet for an old jar of peanut butter and wrinkles his nose at it. He'd rather have a steak or something, but peanut butter is the fastest thing. Not even waiting to get a knife and some bread to make a sandwich, he tucks into it with a spoon and eats it directly from the jar and groans over how absolutely childish this is.
He makes it back to the television and just stands there, craning his neck down to watch it as he shovels bites of peanut butter in his mouth and thinks about what a terrible and thirsty idea this was. He drops the jar onto his coffee table and flicks through channels once more.
The knock at his front door comes lightly enough to take his attention away from his spoon. The knock tells him that someone is there, but also the pattern of it lets him know it's a friend coming to call this late at night. Sirius tears himself away from the television playing dastardly and dangerous sounding newsreels indicating that the world should be ending soon. Any and all signs of the apocalypse are supposedly coming at the end of December, when the great computer and technological crashes are predicted to come.
Sirius's face (and insides) are numb with the amount of alcohol swirling in his system at the moment as his heavy lidded eyes keep trying to focus upon the digital screen in front of him all but screeches about the end being near. His head is heavy on his neck and it rests in a sluggish way, tilted forward as he brings yet another aluminum can of beer (left on the coffee table from earlier in the evening) to his lips and drinks more of what he does not need for the rest of the night.
Sirius ignores the light knock upon his door, figuring it to be Remus, hoping to come inside Sirius's small home space all bleary eyed on his own and drunk enough to finally utter the name of the young woman plaguing his dreams at night. Sirius does not care that Remus feels some kind of way about the young woman, no. But, Sirius does care that the only times he hears about this woman is when Remus has been drinking to some extent at some point: Hermione's name escapes the professor's lips when he's had either a beer or two or a six pack or more of shitty beer.
Because he's too much of a coward to deal with the important things in his waking hours.
Sirius before anyone else is totally aware of the freeing act that alcohol has on individuals and the admissions they make to others in the dead of night: hell, he'd been one of these people more than he is able to count (especially in this current moment), but he is not up for this, especially when Sirius should have been in bed hours ago, alongside other respectable people.
Sirius tilts his head back with great difficulty and tips the cold metal lip against the warmth of his own lips and guzzles more flat beer, squinting at the disgusting taste that it brings, but feeling like he needs to keep his too-intoxicated buzz going.
The knocks at the front door don't go away, and Sirius decides that it's time for bed after a quick trip to the kitchen to eat some plain pieces of bread in place of the terrible peanut butter and drink a regular glass of tap water, until he hears a near strangled voice call out from the other side of his door.
"Siri?"
Rarely does the shortened version of his name pass through anyone's lips, let alone belong to the voice that he hears tonight: James Potter's. And behind that voice is no small pronunciation, no timidity, like there usually is when he uses this shortened version of Sirius's name (often during times he wants something). No, instead, it's hardened, rough, and all business.
Sirius stumbles over to the front door, placing his palms flat against its frame, and looks out the peep hole to see his friend standing straight-backed, jaw tightened, and in full police uniform, twirling his hat in his trembling hands. James, like Lily, had a later shift of work to get to and shit out on the party earlier than everyone else.
"Jamie," Sirius answers cheekily to James's previous attempts to get his friend to answer the door. "What's the magic word?"
James moves closer to the door, shoving his own eye into the peep hole and knocking his glasses askew as he does so. "The magic word is 'now'!"
Sirius pulls his front door back wide enough to invite not only James inside, but also an entire angry mob had they showed up with the cop. Sirius give his friend a too amused grin, stuttering upon his feet, and then steadies himself against the threshold of the open door.
"Evening."
"Good evening, Sirius," but James is still all business and doesn't seem too happy to see his best friend, which does not happen often at all. There's a hard, dark glint in James's eyes as he looks Sirius up and down, as though scanning him for something.
And Sirius is now realizing just how totally out of the ordinary it is for James to be calling so late, and this immediately sobers Sirius up. Not all the way, but quite a bit to where he can speak and hold himself like a proper person, though his awareness is not as sharp as it would be had he been driving on his motorbike. And even more sobering than James's appearance and demeanor is the way that he just sized him up. The last time something like that happened was when they were kids, and it was right after Sirius would have actually hurt Severus Snape in a stupid, rival fueled prank had James not intervened at the last minute.
"Hate to be the bearer of bad news," James finally admits to his oldest and dearest friend, looking up at him slightly through their small height difference. He shuts the door behind him and walks forward, invading Sirius's space enough to cause Sir- ius to walk backwards and into the nearby armchair. "But the squad and I found a body out in the forest tonight. Got the call as soon as I checked into the station."
There's a flush that goes through his body at these words, and Sirius is completely sober at this point. He drops the can of shitty, warm beer he was so adamantly clutching with his hands only moments before. "Do what now?" Sirius asks for clarification— perhaps he had not heard properly the first time. Sirius falls onto the couch behind him and clutches at the armrest.
James sits at the edge of the heavy coffee table and plants his hands on his knees, his hat laying next to him. James's hands rub his face briskly, fingers moving behind his glasses to get at his eyes. When he opens them again, he looks at Sirius with an al- most dead-eyed stare. "There's a body, Sirius. In the woods. Amelia and Edgar Bones are prepping to have it taken in as we speak."
Sirius's heart and mind are absolutely racing—he feels the blood throbbing at his temple and nerves coiling in his throat and stomach. His body lets loose a fever flush, and his mouth is unbelievably dry for someone who has spent the last several hours drinking nonstop. There's no way this could be true—people's bodies just don't lay dead in the places they're not supposed to be in this town. People grow old and die in their homes, in the hospital, or move away and die elsewhere. This just isn't something that happens in Godric's Hollow.
Sirius can only throw his head back and give a great bark of a laugh. "You're putting me on. Granted, it's a bit early for Halloween pranks, James. Good one." And he's actually wiping a tear away from his eye with a knuckle.
James reaches out and grabs the wrist of that hand and holds it tightly in his smaller fist. "I'm absolutely serious—don't you fucking say it—right now." He gives one more good, hard squeeze and lets his friend go. "The lads and I found a body in the woods. We were on a regular patrol and worst case scenario, we hoped to catch some kids out past curfew and send them home. You know, loads of them try to stay out later and later before it gets too cold to be outside at all. Frank's boot caught something sprawled out beside an overgrown tree root and when I shined my light..." James actually shudders from the memory. He covers his face with his hands again and speaks in a muffled tone, eyes closed again. "We think it's Regulus. We need you to come I.D. the body, and then I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you in for questioning at the station."
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