A.N. Hello all! Here is a little treat for you all since the next few chapters I am going to be a teensy weensie bit mean. But I promise that things will get better and I will make up for all the angst with some shameless fluff! Thanks to rotehexe who dials down my dramatic tendencies and reminds me that the characters deserve some happiness along the way.
Special thanks to Reflection Rose, krankykittie, Sincere , xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, JessicaImpossible and a guest for reviewing chapter 14!
She knew this was a horrible idea the moment she set foot in Diagon Alley, but the blood pounding in her ears kept her feet moving towards the wizard she was there to save. The child who was throwing a profound tantrum outside of Quality Quidditch Supplies screamed again, and Hermione's blood ran cold at what she saw.
Sirius Black was just outside of Magical Menagerie when Hermione Granger spotted him. Thorfinn Rowle, cutting an intimidating figure even before the wrinkles and scars of the second wizarding war, had his wand firmly in his hand, facing the marauder's direction. Running as quickly as her legs would carry her, she bounded forward through the crowd. Rowle, hidden by the bustling group of wizards preparing for their children to return to Hogwarts, did not see her.
Pulling up the hood of her worn gray cloak, she slowed her pace until she seemed to just be another face in the crowd. Rowle wouldn't know her, or notice her as a threat, until it was too late if she played this right. Sirius was with Peter Pettigrew, and Hermione's blood ran cold; she didn't know if he was already a spy. By process of elimination, she assumed he must've been the source Abraxas Malfoy had referred to. Swallowing down her rage and desire to kill the loathsome, cowardly rat where he stood, she stepped as casually as she could towards the blonde man.
When she arrived where Rowle was standing, she stuck her wand into the small of his back. She was much smaller than he was, but there wasn't much matter to size when you had the opportunity and the means to kill a man. "I would rethink your options." Hermione warned, purposely pitching her voice down to sound more threatening and for a form of disguise. She grabbed hold of his arm and apparated him to the Forest of Dean – which had quickly become her destination for clandestine meetings and threats.
Rowle tried to turn to face her, and she could have laughed at how predictable he was. Before he could even think of what spell to cast at her, she had wordlessly disarmed him. Now holding both her vinewood wand and his cherry wand in her hand, the impossibly tall man's glare seemed to falter. Though she be but little, she be great, Hermione thought as she shoved her wand point against his throat.
"You think me afraid of you? What is there to fear about a little girl?" All of his teeth reflected back at her when he smiled, and there was something so predatory in his gaze that a shiver ran down her spine. She pushed the tip of her wand into his neck, just under where his jaw sat.
"Give me one reason and I will you show you just how afraid of me you should be." Hermione's eyes were dark with rage, and the large death eater in front of her swallowed loudly.
"Who are you?" He demanded, backing up slowly as she pushed her wand into him more. By the time his back met stone, Hermione was laughing like a mad woman. She sounded so much like Bellatrix in that moment that she scared herself.
"I am your Dark Lord's worst nightmare." Still with her wand to his throat, she took his wand and threw it into a crowded bit of thrush, trusting that the time it took him to retrieve it would be long enough to grab Sirius and apparate out of the busy shopping district. Before releasing him, she pulled him down by the front of his shirt to her height, looking directly into his eyes.
"Tell your Lord that he will have to do much better than you to hurt the people I care about." Letting go of his shirt with a little shove, his height worked against him as he stumbled to the ground. The glare that he sent her way would've terrified her when she'd first encountered the man in her teenage years, but now she knew there were far worse things to fear.
Apparating back to the Alley, Hermione searched for where the irritatingly vulnerable man had gone. Oddly enough, it wasn't Sirius, but Peter that she saw first. Outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream shop, Pettigrew was wiping his jumper where he had spilled his treat. It only took her four bounding steps to approach the duo, and another two seconds to realize that she couldn't tell him the truth of why she was there…not in front of Peter.
"Oh hello boys." Hermione greeted, smiling brightly at the two men. Sirius, who had been avoiding her since their talk at Alice's party, politely nodded towards her. Peter, stupid man that he was, returned her bright smile. It boiled her blood to see him even now acting as if he was a friend.
"Hello Hermione. What brings you to the Alley today? Bit mad here with all the students about." Peter spoke quickly, another drop of his ice cream getting on his jumper.
"Did Sirius not tell you? Don't tell me you've forgotten." Hermione used her best teasing voice, even swatting lightly at Sirius's arm. Pettigrew, she knew from her conversations with Remus in the future, was deeply uncomfortable with romantic relationships and would excuse himself if she did this right.
"Forgotten what?" Sirius asked, suspicion etching itself on his face at her behavior, and his body language tensed as she flirted with him. She'd never called him Sirius before; it was always Black.
"Our appointment silly. You were going to show me the sights." Hermione forced herself to giggle girlishly in the way that Lavender had always done. Memory of her blonde roommate who perished in the war saddened her, and she wondered silently if there would ever be an end to the lives she wanted to save. Smiling emptily at Sirius, her eyes plead with him to go along with her without too many questions. Relenting with a near imperceptible nod, Sirius's body relaxed.
"Oh yes. Sorry Pete. Forgot that I promised our little Hermione here a tour. Of course, you could join us if you wanted." Sirius had meant it genuinely, but Hermione clenched. Her whole plan would be ruined if Peter joined their 'outing'. Holding in a breath in anxiety, Hermione's eyes darted around to see if any other death eaters might come for the Black family's black sheep.
"No…that's…urm…that's quite alright. I must be getting home to mother anyway. You two enjoy yourselves." The small figity man and his melted ice cream cone waved goodbye to them as he hurried off in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron, and Hermione let out the breath she had been holding. Sirius, who had dropped his debonair smile in favor of a skeptical scowl, grabbed Hermione's arm tightly and dragged her to a nearby alley.
His grip was perhaps a little too tight, and Hermione grimaced when he released her harshly against the stone. Rubbing where his grip would likely bruise, she waited for him to say something.
"Why did you need to separate me from Peter? What are you even doing here? Did you follow me?" There was so much to notice in his stance that for a moment, Hermione couldn't respond. Despite the scowl on his face, his wand was still in his pocket. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, but his feet were not spread, not planted…he was not preparing for a fight. It was clear that he trusted her…at least enough to think she wouldn't attack him.
"I wasn't the one following you." Hermione's eyes found Sirius's, and she refused to let his angry grey eyes drive her away. In her past, Sirius had never mentioned being kidnapped, so she could assume that he escaped it somehow, but she couldn't stand by and hope they failed. A feeling that she couldn't identify caused her chest to clench every time she imagined Sirius in danger, and she pushed it back down into the depths once again. She didn't have time for feelings of great depth…there was only room for anger and revenge.
"What is that supposed to mean? For once can you just be fucking up front. I'm not playing this game anymore little girl. You are going to tell me what's going on." His voice was so demanding, and Hermione flinched at his volume. She could see the anger radiating through his veins, but she couldn't tell him…not the whole truth. When she hesitated to respond, he began to walk away from her.
"Your mother." Those words stopped in his tracks. His mother…he joked about her, but bringing her up to him was like inviting a fight.
"My mother?" Sirius spat, approaching her until his face was not even inches from hers. If he took even one more step forward, their noses would be touching. "And what could that manipulative blood purist bitch have to do with you following me to Diagon Alley."
"She got tipped off. I overheard her and Abraxas Malfoy talking. They knew where you were…someone was going to kidnap you. She said you'd make an excellent bargaining chip." Hermione's breath came quicker with every passing moment, feeling his threatening aura as the proximity continued. She hated herself for thinking it, but Sirius Black was bloody fit when he was angry.
His fist lifted and for the first time, Hermione wondered if he would hurt her. She closed her eyes tightly as he screamed, his clenched hand flying forward. Waiting, she expected pain, but it never came. Sirius's hand met the brick of the wall and a painful crunch sounded. His scream of agony melded into his scream of anger, and Hermione hurried to catch him as he stumbled. Pulling away from her touch, he was stringing together so many expletives and cursewords that Hermione wondered where some of them had even come from…many she had never heard used in conjunction before.
"You need to go to St. Mungo's." Hermione responded after a quick evaluation. At least two of his knuckles were broken – likely a third – and his index finger was bent at an unnatural angle. He would need to apparrate to the hospital, and there was no way he wouldn't splinch himself.
"Piss off. I'm fine. I've got some skelegro back at my flat." Sirius informed her, pulling his hand out of her grip and clutching it to his chest. He couldn't fool her though; she had helped Madam Pomfrey with healing after the last battle. She knew an injury when she saw one.
"Unless you want double the bones, you don't need skelegro. You need pain potion and bone repair potion. Please Black…let me take you to St. Mungo's. Never talk to me again if it makes you feel better, but please just let me take you to the hospital." The animagus glared at her, looking briefly between her and his shattered hand, as if determining whether he really needed his hand. After a long silence, he relented, allowing her to wrap her arm around his.
Singular focus on St. Mungo's filled her mind and with an uncomfortable pull at her bellybutton, they disappeared. Her grip on Sirius's arm was tight as they reappeared in the sterile halls of St. Mungo's. It hadn't changed much by her time, the pale-yellow walls more comforting to her than she expected. The last time she had been in the hospital had been when she was making her time turner and she had exhausted herself magically.
"How can I help you?" A medi-witch in what appeared to be her late 20s that looked eerily familiar to Hermione greeted.
"Urm…" Hermione shook her head, pushing her need to identify the woman's face away and pulling back what was important. "He's broken his hand. At least two knuckles, maybe three. I think at least one of his fingers is also broken."
Sirius, who had pushed away from her the moment they had arrived, grumbled something about what Hermione said being nonsense, which was put to bed quickly when the woman grabbed his hand and he drew in a sharp breath through his teeth and whimpered in pain.
"You're likely right, although I think we may need to vanish some of his bones if the splinters are too small to knit back together. Let me get you in a room and then a healer will be with you shortly." It was easy to follow the woman's lime-green robes through the twisting corridors of the hospital. Hermione knew she had told Sirius she would leave after dropping him off, but a pain in her chest compelled her to stay and make sure he was alright.
After their fifth turn, they entered an open area with patient rooms along the walls. A large round desk stood in the center, bustling as healers-in-training and medi-witches and wizards traded files and talked at one million words a second. It was loud and fast-paced, and wholey unlike how the hospital was run in her time. The woman, still a mystery to Hermione, closed the door, effectively cutting off the outside world.
Sirius sat on the bed, as he had been instructed, thumbing at his hand like she imagined a wounded dog would. His face was a sad mix of anger and embarrassment, and finally Hermione realized that her presence may really be as unwelcome as he had said.
"I've dropped you off, so I suppose I'll be going now." There was a hint of sadness in her voice, and Hermione found herself considering again why exactly she was so attached to this man. In her time, he had been her friend, but in this time….
She drew in a deep breath and waited for a moment longer, taking in the man. Not for the first time, she wondered how so much anguish fit inside him; his own mother had just tried to have him kidnapped for Merlin's sake. Grabbing her cloak from the chair she had draped it over, she held it in her hands like it was her most precious belonging…and perhaps it was, the last thing Harry had given her.
As she turned away from him and towards the door, she felt a tug on her sleeve. Sirius's good hand had caught her jumper. "You don't…you can stay. I don't want to be alone." He refused to look at her, but Hermione desperately wanted to see the emotions floating in his grey eyes. Vulnerability had never come easily to the Animagus, and Hermione was not going to turn away from him. The room suddenly felt too small, and she pulled the chair she had been sitting in next to him. It felt all too familiar to her, and she wondered if she had cared for him in another life. Plopping down in the chair, she grabbed his good hand and began to rub circles into it, as she had always done when those she loved were upset.
"Do you want me to get James?" It was a simple question. When emergencies happened or someone got hurt, you call their family; Sirius had chosen the Potters as his family long ago.
"No…don't bother him. Merlin knows I've been through worse. He hates hospitals; reminds him of when his parents died. Can't say I'm much of a fan either." He shifted in the bed and winced when his broken hand brushed briefly against his body. "Fuck!" Sirius cursed, hissing the word through his teeth as he swallowed the pain. Hermione knew this was definitely not the worst pain he'd ever felt, but it still upset her.
"A healer will be along soon, and then they'll get you fixed right up." It was a promise, but it didn't carry much weight as St. Mungo's wasn't known for being the fastest place to visit. Not to mention that the injury he had come in for would be classified as non-emergency.
Silence fell on them then, and the discomfort of it swirled around them. Hermione sat in the chair, rubbing circles on his hand, and Sirius laid on the bed, staring intently everywhere besides at the witch beside him. It felt intimate in a way, and Hermione could feel her face warm from the closeness.
"I'm sorry…" Sirius finally spoke, his words cutting through the think quietness like a knife. "You were only trying to protect me and I…I'm sorry." Hermione could tell that he was reluctant to say it, and she tried to remember the last time she had heard him apologize to someone. This was the first.
"I don't blame you for being angry. After all, your mother is a right cunt." The harsh language felt foreign on her tongue, and although her instinct was to flinch away from the word, she stood her ground. Sirius's eyes snapped up to hers, and it was like an electric current surged under her skin. Before either of them knew what was going on, Sirius's lips were on hers. They were softer than she had expected, and surprisingly warm. Deep in the recesses of her mind, all the thoughts and feelings she had been pushing away regarding the wizard in her arms flooded her brain, and she wrapped her fingers in his long, curly, black hair.
Their positions were awkward, so Hermione stood. Sirius moved so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Hermione positioned herself between his legs. His tongue swirled around her lips, and she parted them to allow him access. A slight moan escaped from her as he continued, and Hermione could've sworn she heard him growl.
A click alerted them to the opening door, and they jumped apart as fast as physically possible. Her face now red from the heat of their snogging and the embarrassment of being caught, Hermione stood awkwardly in the far corner. The same young woman who had brought them to the room had walked in, shooting a knowing glance between the two. Sirius, who looked proud rather than embarrassed, held up his hand.
"Mr. Black, my name is Healer Pomfrey, and I will be taking care of you." Just as quickly as Hermione's face had heated up from embarrassment, her features twisted into understanding. The woman looked familiar because this was a young Poppy Pomfrey before she accepted her position at Hogwarts. It was the same woman who had talked with her when she had accidentally turned into a cat, who had brushed her hair when she'd been petrified, who treated anyone and everyone who needed her after the Battle of Hogwarts. An urge to hug the woman tightly gripped Hermione, and she had to clasp her hands together to resist the urge.
Pomfrey cast her diagnostic spells and promised to return in a few minutes.
Distraction came as her saving grace, and she felt the coin she wore around her neck heat up and she pulled it up from under her jumper.
Possible Traitor. HQ 10 minutes – Romulus
Hermione's heart felt like it might beat out of its chest, and she stood immediately, gathering her cloak in her hands.
"I have to go. You'll be patched up in no time, but I have to go." Her voice was panicked and insistent as she frantically prepared to leave the room Sirius's eyes searched her, and his voice was tight.
"Don't go." It was a genuine request, and Hermione's heart clenched as her hand wrapped around the warm coin around her neck. He grasped desperately for her hand, but she pulled away from him.
"I'm sorry…I have to." A moment later, Sirius Black was alone in the room, staring at the space where Hermione had been.
"Don't leave me here alone."