A/N: Writing when I can find the time!

Chapter 37

Potent Potables & Possession

"And today, class, we have an exciting lesson over the deadly effects of Amorentia!" Slughorn exclaimed with a juggle of his round belly. Half the class groaned, that being the male half, while the female Gryffindors and Slytherins turned thoughtful. After all, it couldn't be all bad to learn a little more about a love potion.

Hermione scratched her elbow and her brow crossed with her frustration. She wanted to seeth aloud, but dared not make any obvious remarks.

This is complete and utter rubbish! We should be learning potions that will enlighten, not hinder us. How he ever became Potions Master...

Classes had been fruitless and boring so far their first day back. Hermione sometimes caught herself longing for texts she hadn't read yet, things she couldn't recall without meaning to in her mind. She knew most of Slughorn's lesson already, as though she'd read someone's meticulously detailed notes on the subject once before.

Regulus was doing his best to ignore her at her right and she attempted the same. Though every time her eyes surreptitiously sought his, he was staring at her without staring, damned Snake. Sirius had made an obvious show for everyone while dropping her off at Advanced Potions, earlier, even going so far as to blow her kisses once he literally carried her into the classroom. She had been mortified but unallowed to show it.

While Sirius had been somewhat agreeable during Arithmancy that morning, he took to playing with her hair and making faces at her behind the Professor's back. Hermione was already in a giggling mood, she was horrified to admit.

Breakfast had been bad enough, what with the plates constantly appearing and disappearing. Socks and underwear and odd items had bedecked the Great Hall. Wobbling House Elves flashed in and out of existence. All the while students were outraged over wardrobe and hygeine malfunctions. Even Sirius seemed somewhat dumbfounded, until Hermione had followed his devastated gaze at his House table.

The Marauders were hunched over together and rolling in fits of laughter, even James. Hermione too felt a slight pang for being out of the loop in this obvious prank. Sirius sighed heavily and simply breathed, "Bastards took my idea..."

She felt so guilty for his despair that she held her tongue. Still it was funny that the Headmaster actually yelled at an obviously drunk House Elf that kept appearing underneath his pointed hat. Especially when he made careful threats to the culprits while glancing at the suspiciously stoic Marauders. Sirius laughed then and even tickled Hermione until she joined him, distracted Albus' attention from Gryffindor.

Fingers snapped in front of her face and she blinked, then glared at an increadulous Reggie. "C'mon, Dumbledore, we haven't got all day?"

"What are you talking about, Black?" she asked with a superior tilt of her chin for good measure.

Regulus seemed to fight a winning grin before rolling his eyes and standing at their table. "Fine, I'll grab the ingredients this time. Really, you should wipe that stupid grin off your face. You don't have to pretend you're in love with my brother, Hermione." he leaned in slightly, palms against the table, elbows bent as he whispered, "Or is it an act?"

Hermione hissed long and dug her nails into her palms before shaking her head and studying Slughorn's notes for the latest pointless potion. She shifted her papers and then noticed a parchment that was floating just over her shoulder. She snatched and glanced briefly at the classroom before tearing it open beneath her desk.

"Meeting me at Headquarters after Dinner.

L"

Fighting the urge to look over her shoulder to meet Lily's piercing emerald eyes, she crumpled the paper and silently, wandlessly vanished it.

Hermione was relieved to escape Advanced Potions without having to deal with Regulus Black. Tucking her books close to her chest, she kept her chin tucked down and sped around her classmates to be the first out the door. She had high hopes that Sirius wouldn't be waiting for her. Upon catching no sight of that familiar mop of longish black hair, she sighed with relief and unconsciously let her magic expand out.

Much like stretching, she loved these brief and rare moments when she could be by herself, even if it was in a hall filled with her peers. The dungeons weren't so terrible as the towers and stair cases, however. And she had every intention of taking advantage of the break before dinner. She was halfway around the corner when she heard an unmistakable voice shout, "Oi! Mione!"

Without looking back to affirm sight of her betrothed, she turned into the first empty classroom she could find. Keeping one arm tight around her books, she awkwardly turned the knob, only to feel the door shoved roughly back into place by an arm in the darkness. Hermione bit back the urge to scream, though she was hoping this was the Bloody Baron or even Jeeves, rather than Death Eaters come at last to claim her.

Her nightmares were always filled with Death Eaters...

Her books fell to the ground with a solid thump and a hard, lean body pressed against her, one around her arms to keep them at her sides and the other hand clapped over her mouth. She could feel his rough breathing behind and against her and couldn't help her trembling. Beyond the door she could hear Sirius calling for her, only to be interrupted by several of the Slytherins he had so easily charmed earlier that morning.

"Black! We have business to discuss with you," a Wizard sounding much like Wilkes said.

Hermione stiffened as she remembered what Lily and Severus said, that he had taken the Dark Mark over break.

Sirius was very close to them now, just outside the door, she thought. And he amazed her with his ability to flip the switch and laugh back at them jovially, "Ah, mate, back for more are we? You should know by now to conduct business first with my associate..." his voice trailed as he followed them a ways away and the clamor of students brushing by interrupted his words.

"Not a word," a voice whispered, grazed against her ear and she felt the vibrations of his chest against her back. Her eyes shot open wildly as she recognized the feel of those muscle bound Quidditch arms, the smell of sky and rain and earth, the way her magic felt so free and at peace. It was him and she was home.

"James," she gasped, feeling a hundred tiny flittering emotions in her chest as she breathed the same air with him, as she drank in the feel of him against her. She had not allowed herself to truly look at him since the return to Hogwarts. She wouldn't...couldn't bear the evidence of his pain. Feeling his emotions was bad enough. In that moment, she was grateful for the darkness of their hiding place. Her eyes stung and she longed to move to rub the tears brimming, only to feel his grip on her tighten in determination.

"Damn it, Hermione, you're not making this easy," he hissed and his square chin dug slightly into her neck, nestled almost. She huffed impatiently but obeyed, confident he would explain his reasons for kidnapping her and holding her hostage in Slytherin territory. It was a mad gamble, typically irrational of course.

She sighed again and her lips brushed against the calloused skin of his palm. His hand twitched and then slipped to rub against her mouth, trail down her chin and clasp her neck and then dip into the open collar of her shirt. His nose grazed against her neck, buried into her curls where he inhaled long and deep.

"James..." she whispered and hesitated, unconsciously leaning deeper into the easy comfort of his embrace. He was so much taller than her and against her will, images of the last night they were together filtered through her most treasured and painful memories.

"I've missed you so much..." he groaned into her skin, his vice like grip turning into a desperate embrace, where he clung to her like a lost lifeline.

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut tightly, afraid he would push her away again in the following seconds, needing him to do exactly that. But another, lonely and frightened part of her, the broken girl he had picked up and brought inside his home and life, relished in their connection. She could feel everything he was feeling, his misery which ached to a degree that matched her own. His complex tumbling mesh of jealousy, hatred and pain, betrayal, all tightly wound and bound by a love so deep it frightened her. James Potter was like a flame which burned too quickly and too brightly. She feared one day this would cause him to snuff out. Normal people didn't live with this kind of passion their entire lives, let alone each day at a time. James didn't know how to live otherwise. He ate and breathed his love for her, and when she was torn from him, when he pushed her away, it had ripped them both apart.

A small, sensible corner of her brain thought back to the bond the ancient magic had created betwixt them, and she had every intention of resuming her search. Perhaps she could tell Uncle Albus about this, at least...

She moaned when James pressed his open mouth over the pulse in her neck and a hand trailed over her breasts,then dipped lower to reach between her legs. Her thighs clenched instinctively and she was so close to whirling around in his embrace, desperate to throw her legs up and ride him until they were plastered with sweat and drained of energy.

Sensible Hermione arose in abject horror with this realization and spoke through her mouth, in breathless, husky tones. "J-James, we can't."

His fingers trailed ever so subtly over her skirt, pressing against the places that drove her mad, in a way that was making her lose sense.

And we're still fully clothed, she thought, dismally.

"Fuck it, Hermione," James growled low somewhere along her jawline. "I can't take this anymore. I watched him with you at breakfast...and in the halls." His voice broke and he took a much needed gasp of air before continuing, "And you were laughing and smiling like you both meant it. I shouldn't have said any of those things in my letter. I'm a fucking nutter and we both know it. But I'm yours and you will always be mine, remember?"

"No, not anymore," she said. "James, we're doing this to protect you and me. He won't let anything happen to me."

James flipped her around so quickly her hair flung into their faces and parted over her face with his hand as he pushed her up and against the door. She was pinned against him and his hand was in her hair, his eyes flashing in the dimmest of lights a myriad of amber and dark forest green. The look in his face was just as mad as he claimed to be. But underneath it, she could feel his fear pressing against her like a thick oppressive weight.

"I don't care about that, Hermione. If I knew that was all this was it might be enough for me, knowing you were safe. But every time I see you two together, everything I just told myself fades away and I can't...breathe." He pressed his forehead to hers and her lashes fluttered as his hands roved to caress her hips and her breasts, thumbs slowly circling her covered nipples. She arched into his touch, her body pliant and willing even as she continued to argue.

"Jamie, I love you. I will always need you. But you're so good, too good for me. I'm going to learn what this bond between us is and find a way to counter it. Uncle Albus will help us, I'm sure. I can't do this to you anymore. We can't pretend the rest of our lives. It won't be fair to the people we marry," she rattled on, hating herself and him for making her say the sensible thing. She knew he wouldn't listen and maybe, deeply, she said what she said because of it.

Because James sucked in a breath as though the air had been knocked from his lungs and he shook his head. "Don't you fucking do it. Don't you dare leave me alone. I have to know what you're feeling. How else can I know you still feel something for me? How will I know when you want me to do this..."

Hermione cried out sharply, but her cry turned into a whispered silencing charm and James sighed in triumph at the word. He knew just as surely as she that her resolve had fallen and her decision, however foolish was made.

Her arms snaked up around his neck as he rolled his hips into hers, connecting them at last and she moaned to feel his hard length straining against his pants. She hitched up a leg around him to grind just as roughly back into him and their mouths opened, breaths shuddering in the cold damp underground.

James spoke as his hands lowered and he began to drag her skirt up higher, "Do you want me to touch you, Hermione?"

She bit her lip at the sound of his rarely used gravelly tone and flung her head back against the ancient wood when his fingers grazed her wet cotton underwear. He smirked against her lips.

"I'll take that as a yes." He pushed aside her underwear and then his fingers were grazing, dipping shallowly into her and grazing against her sensitive flesh. "I want you to say it, tell me what you want," he said against her collarbone as he nipped and licked her skin.

Hermione shook her head, though her moans continued to rise in volume and frequency. She was undulating against his hand, but she wanted so much more. She needed him, all of him. She arched into him and reached down to stroke the bulge in his pants and smiled to feel his pleasure through their bond. They were both so close and she wanted him now, damn it.

She undid his zipper and reached past his underpants to pull out his thick manhood. She stroked hard and tight, dragged her thumb against the tip, rubbing pre-cum over his smooth flesh. The smell of sex lay thick between them, coupled with the emotions that were doubled and shared over and again through the magic beating in time to their hearts around them like a living pulse.

He helped lift her as she clamped her legs around his waist and used his shoulders for leverage, the door to steady her as she slid achingly slow over him. Both of them groaned deeply as he stretched her anew and filled her completely. James bit down on the skin just above her breast slightly and she shivered at the sensations washing over them. They stood together like this for several quick, shallow breaths, hip bones grazing her pubic bone. And then, slowly she lowered her lips to his and took his bottom lip into her mouth and lightly sucked.

James came alive at her touch and his tongue plunged in between her lips, grazing every surface as if to memorize her all over again. His strong hands grasped her hips and she parted from him, leaned against the door as he pulled slightly out of her and plunged in again. The door rattled and they shouted as they came to their release, James first with the sweet hot bursts of liquid fire into her center, seemingly deeper she felt. And his pleasure brought her down harder, grazing against her sensitive nerves and her walls clenched and spasmed against his cock, until he found more of himself releasing into her. She dragged every last drop from him and only after their trembling subsided did they both lean against the door, panting, clinging to one another.

For a long moment they said nothing. Hermione felt like it wasn't enough, like it couldn't ever be enough...

"I'm sorry..." he whispered the last thing she had expected to hear from him. Wasn't she the one who should be apologizing?

"James, you don't have to..."

"Yes I do," he cut in, pressing his lips over hers slowly and rolling his hips against hers gently, with promise. "I've pushed you from the moment I met you into this relationship, whatever you might think. Much as I tried to stay away from you, or treat you like a friend, a brother, I just couldn't bear it."

She sighed and rested her forehead against his. "I know."

"I know this doesn't-doesn't change anything," he began with a raged breath, where his arms tightened their hold around her waist, "I know you can't break your oath to Pad-to him. But I just never want you to forget..." he trailed off, helplessly and she could sense the darker turn of his thoughts.

Ever since their first encounter with Voldemort in Hogsmeade, she had felt a shadow enter James's inner light. He had been so purely good when she first met him. But he was a darker shade of pale now, not gray enough to abstain from honor or the greater good, she knew. Still, she feared between her betrayal and Dorea's failing health, the months ahead wouldn't prove any more healing for James.

She wanted to tell him what he wanted to hear, wanted to promise she would never give herself fully to Sirius and that in a few months, maybe after things died down they could call of their faux engagement.

Instead, she bit her lip and said, "I can't promise you anything, no matter how much I want to give you everything you deserve." She didn't add that in her eyes, by ending their relationship, she was giving him the chance to have everything he deserved.

I'm no good for you. Can't you see that?

James choked back what sounded like a sob and a laugh. Bitterly, his softer tone gone, he replied, "I should never have listened to Mum when she told me to give you space. I should have proposed to you the first moment I knew I loved you. Now it's too late...too fucking late."

She ran her hands up his chest and dug her fists into his wild hair. "Listen to me, James Merlin Potter. I will always be on your side and I will never give up on you or abandon you in my heart. You're my best friend and you give me hope. I don't know what I wouldn't have done if you hadn't found me. Don't you see that I owe you? Let me do this. Let me protect you any way I can."

An empty hole filled her chest when he lowered her to the ground, pulling out of her at last. She stood, numbly as he righted his trousers and stood centimeters before her. So close but something was different. She could barely feel anything off of him and his emotions. It chilled and frightened her and she wondered if she should have said anything. She wondered if they could ever be happy again, without each other.

His hand slipped into hers and she lifted her chin, looking where she knew his eyes to be as he laced their fingers together. "Come, we can wear my cloak to the kitchens. Let's get you something to eat."

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly when his lips brushed over hers and parted from her. "James, we can't. Someone will know I'm missing."

Thanks to Lily and her little club...

James's grip tightened and he stood straighter, increasing the space between them. "You mean he'll notice?"

A tiny flame of frustration suddenly ignited in her at his tone. "Yes," she snapped. "Sirius, your best mate, will notice we're both gone. He's not stupid. It'll be hard enough to explain why I didn't wait for him just now."

"Why didn't you wait?" James asked with brushes of amusement and something else in his voice as he shifted on his feet.

"I needed some time to myself," she admitted. "Don't act so smug James Potter. We didn't have a row. And you need to talk to him. Sooner or later you'll have to grow up and admit that he did this for both of us."

James let go of her hand. "I know," he answered softly. "I'm just not ready...not yet. I need..."

Time.

James left the abandoned classroom under the cover of his Invisibility Cloak, without Hermione. He never turned back to check if she were in tears. He was too afraid if he saw her in tears then his control would vanish and he'd rush back to her and they'd end up right back where they started. He tightened his fists as he walked through Slytherin's domain and past the Potion's classroom with a Snake-worthy sneer.

Guess you are half a Black after all, he thought snidely.

He had a sudden longing to skip dinner and take a spin out on the Quidditch Pitch, or just out, anywhere in the beckoning sky. His limbs ached and tightened with nervous energy. He was too close to what had just happened between him and Hermione to think clearly. He hadn't meant to attack her the way he did. He'd been watching her, spent much of his free period trying not to think of her and failing dismally. Not even the perfect reaction of the school to their greatest prank yet had lightened his dark mood. He'd ended up outside her classroom without realizing it.

Her skin was so soft, like velvet or the clouds...

The bond between them, the thing he was responsible for existing between them, was constantly drawing him to her, wherever she was. He wondered absently whether it would work over great distances, should he ever have need to find her.

She panted his name with his every thrust, and he had wanted to burst with agony and joy knowing this must but couldn't be the last time...

He doubted Sirius would let her out of his sight, he forced himself to acknowledge. He could only hope Moony hadn't been looking at the map anytime in the last hour. Otherwise he'd have some serious explaining to do.

James scowled at the few students lurking the corridors rushing to make their way to the Great Hall. He envied them all for their innocence. Because most of them weren't aware that the world outside these grounds was going to shit. And there was nothing he could do about Hermione or Sirius or the Slytherins she lived among. That was Padfoot's problem now, he told himself.

But the feel of her breath against his, her hands wrapping desperately and perfectly around him...

Godric's tatty knickers!

James headed for the kitchens, knowing he wasn't fit for much socializing this evening. After he burgled something to eat, he thought of his broom and the towers where most students didn't dare climb. He had climbed them all and flown through their maze on nights like this, when the world seemed to press around him until he couldn't breathe anymore.

His throat ached painfully as he fought back down another memory of her. He wanted to rush back the way he came and beg for her to let him take care of her. He'd been doing nothing but since he found her in front of his home. James realized, after the months since she'd been in his life since, he didn't know how to function otherwise.

If she won't let me near her then I'll have to protect her some other way, he decided.

Albus hadn't been exactly pleased with him after he learned about the engagement between Sirius and Hermione. James knew it was because his godfather had another match in mind for his niece. Much as James knew what he was getting himself into, going to his Godfather the night after Sirius and Hermione left Potter Manor, he had gone still. But he had been surprised to find half a dozen other Witches and Wizards already waiting at Dumbledore's home. He recognized all of them, having seen them around his parents or at various functions at one time or another.

He realized then this was the organization his father often whispered about. The Order of the Phoenix. Albus was furious with him for arriving unannounced, but calmed once he saw how upset his godson was. That is, until he learned what he'd done.

Hermione wasn't telling him anything he hadn't heard already, when she told him to grow up. He was trying to do just that, damn it, but moderation had never come easily for him. And not having her at his side made him anxious, half himself, empty.

He had begged Dumbledore to let him join the Order, that night.

"I'm a liability now, aren't I? You can't afford to not let me in," he'd insisted.

Predictably, his godfather had given a cryptic answer in turn, "Can we afford to let you in, James? Our numbers are few but steadily growing. I have feared for some time that we would have to recruit younger. For every new member it seems another falls. I must ask you, do I have the right to allow you into the hell we're trying so desperately to keep you from?"

"Albus, I'm already involved, more deeply than any of you are aware. And after tonight, you know I'll just go looking for trouble if you don't let me join."

In the end, he'd won. James rarely lost an argument or a debate. His logic while always tainted by emotion was sound and convincing. And his godfather realized it was indeed wiser to keep him close, than to let him free to raise his own brand of hell.

James wasn't an official member of the Order, but he spent the rest of Christmas break hovering around their meetings and sharing what he could of the inner gears of his Death Eater classmates. He didn't tell them that Voldemort had singled he and Hermione out and that they'd already faced him and defied him. And he didn't tell them his real reason for wanting to join.

He burst into the Head Boy and Girl dormitories and was pleased to find it empty. Evans had spent little time there since term began and he found the silence gave him time to think. When Moony and Wormtail weren't crashing in, that is. He wrote a note on parchment and pointing at it with his wand, thought of his godfather while it vanished from his hand.

He didn't wait to head for the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore would meet him there soon as he read the message. And if everything went according to plan, he soon wouldn't have time to think about Hermione anymore.

Review: What is James going to see Dumbledore about, do you think? What does Lily want to see Hermione for? All this and more in the next chapter. Thanks for all your reviews! And sorry again for the delay. I'm trying to work on this as much as I can manage. :)