10th Symptom

First Dance

The tribunes of the first Quiddich match of the year was a cacophony of noise and colors. The Red and Gold of Gryffindor battled against the Blue and Silver of Ravenclaw. And not even the heavy skies, the pouring rain and the cold wind of the end of October could deter the youngest Gryffindor from assisting to the match.

Hermione had always found this sport to be one of the most ridiculously violent and barbaric divertissement of the wizarding world but she couldn't help but be impressed by the genuine fervour that it drew in even the most ordinary wizard, transforming him into a frenzied, adoring and screaming mess at each match.

She shouldn't have been surprised to see the adoration growing tenfold when wizards like James and Sirius were on the pitch.

She tightened her scarf around her neck and huddled in her coat a bit more. Emmeline had come early to find good spots and she was happy she did for she had never seen the tribunes this packed before. Wizards were already singing, clapping and tapping their feet, only stopping to scream the names of the players at they entered the pitch.

Hermione swallowed a smile as the sighs and high-pitched cries of quite an alarmous number of witches rang when the name Potter and then Black were announced.

"Good Lord, they're ridiculous" muttered Emmeline while straightening her Gryffindor bonnet.

Hermione agreed. But she would add that the fervour that they drew was on the thin line between ridiculous and frightening. Even if one admitted the fact that they did look very nice in their Quiddich uniforms...and drenched by the rain.

The witch almost jumped back as she felt someone else sit at her side and was more than surprised when she recognized who it was. Narcissa Black had just arrived and sat in a nonchalent way in the Gryffindors seats, busying herself by tightening around her a scarf bearing Gryffindor's colors.

Like always the Slytherin looked perfect. She seemed to have fallen at the mercy of the rain for a short time before entering the covered tribunes and her pale hair stuck to her pretty features and ended in her back like the most flattering sheet of wet satin. A lot of the witches present were giving Narcissa quite a few dirty looks as she pushed her hair back in an elegant and practiced gesture. But Hermione felt at peace with the fact that she didn't felt the slightest bit of envy looking at her. It was like looking at a magnificient piece of art, there was just no use comparing yourself to it, you just admired and had a healthy dose of surprise when the statue moved, or talked or just looked alive. The rain did make her seem more human but not even sightly less striking.

Hermione only looked at her own dishelved appearance with a self-deprecating smile, patting her hair almost absent-mindedly. Even with the black protective roof that they had unfolded over the seats, she knew that the humidity was making them crazier than they had ever been.

"Do you know the rules ?" softly asked Narcissa.

Hermione was shocked to be able to hear her over the current cacophony, and even more that the blond was actually talking to her. She scratched her neck before tentatively nodding "Yeah...I mean, Emmeline explained some things to me. James is the seeker, and Sirius is the beater so he has to prevent the...big balls to go into the circles before they attain the keeper and also its better if he sends them in the directions of the opposite players that can score. I heard he was very good at this. Most of the other houses players are afraid of him."

"Sirius has always been very good at hitting things" said the blond witch with a smile and Hermione almost choked on her saliva when she understood that the Slytherin had just made a joke. The Gryffindor nodded with what surely was a very tense smile before she decided to focus on the game, it would be less disturbing than Narcissa Black being...friendly.

Sirius was up in the sky, seeming as confortable there as on a couch in the common room. His hair were completely drenched by the rain and a wild, boyish smile stretch his full lips. As he shook his head under the rain to move wet black strands of hair away from his eyes, Hermione was tempted to just pinch herself. Being that handsome was just...not normal.

Her eyes following him, she found herself far more entertained by the match than she had ever been. There was something under the raw brutality of the game. For the first time she noticed the underlying strategic game, the precise position of the players and the absolute harmony and brotherhood that seem to permenate in the Gryffindor's team as the players exchanged high-fives and fist bumps in the air.

The ease with which they moved into the sky was unsettling, and their reflexes were alarming. She found herself gripping the wooden railing of the tribunes with the others to see them better, holding her breath with them at each risky move and sighing in relief with them when the players found their balance back.

There was something painful with watching James Potter fly in a frenetic run for the snitch. Harry appeared and disappeared before her eyes again and again as she looked at him and she felt her eyes cloud. She now understood why Sirius had said that Harry had inherited his talent from his father. James was fantastic. There was literally no point denying it. And where Harry had played on what seemed like unaturally good instincts, James played on what was without a doubt an unatural amount of talents.

When he finally caught the snitch, Hermione found herself raising on her feet like everybody in the tribunes, screaming and clapping as hard as she could. The Gryffindor had often felt like an oddity in her house, and even if she loved it dearly, she had never been as loud and rash as the other members. If she had not been the self-entitled, emotional mess, and justice seeker that she was, she would have thought that the Hat had make a mistake. But holding the hand of Emmeline Vance, jumping up and down like a little girl as she looked at all the players leaving their brooms to jump on the back of James Potter, she had never felt more at home.

Unboldened, she turned and took the hand of Narcissa in her other one, but it seemed that the blond didn't even noticed her. She gripped the wooden railing in a death grip, her eyes fixed on the assailed form of James Potter. Her pale blue orbs were shining as thought her heart was bursting with pride, and the biggest smile that Hermione had ever seen was stretching her lips. For the first time Narcissa seemed her age, and it was as if she didn't know what to do with the amount of pride and joy that she felt.

Hermione swore to herself that she would never again think of her as not being human.

§§§

They stood on the pitch, waiting for the players to come out of the locker-room. Emmeline had already left, saying that she would see enough of "their stupid faces" in the enormous party planned in the Common Room.

So Hermione was left alone waiting with Narcissa on the side, with most of the Gryffindors present to the match (which reprsented most of the Gryffindors anyway) and some Hufflepuffs standing in the back, apparently too impatient to wait in the Common Room to congratulate the players.

When James Potter came out, an awfully loud fusion of screams and praises ascended from them and he was intercepted by quite a bit of students before finally arriving to them. They were completely swallowed by the crowd, and Hermione was quite baffled when the seeker found her.

"Hey girlie !" Before she could answer she was enguffled in a hug, and her feet leaving the ground as James lifted her in an embrace.

"James ! Put me down !" She tried, but her voice was covered by his laughter. He finally let her down and immediately his hands busied themselves by making wild gestures as he as talked in an excited tone "Sirius is still in the locker, I mean he's doing his hair so it might take a while, BUT. Have you seen me ? I mean I was like wow, I don't even know, like I was diving and diving and people were screaming and like the other seeker was there, and Pads sent a freaking bludger his way and the people went crazy and I was diving and I caught the snitch- Wait, Where is Cissy ? Have you seen her ?"

"Over here, James." said the blond in what seemed like a very amused tone.

When he saw the Slytherin, his attitude seemed to completely change. He slowly let Hermione down before bringing himself close to Narcissa, passing a nervous hand through his damp hair. He opened and closed his mouth several times before fishing in his pocket for something, his hand coming out enclosing the Snitch, baring it in front of the blond witch.

A genuine smile illuminated her face, brighter than anything Hermione had seen, and with her pale damp hair and her cheeks flushed with excitement, Narcissa Black had never been more beautiful. She bit her pink lips before taking the Snitch and asking softly "Is it for me that you caught it ?"

Wordlessly James nodded, swallowing hard. "Did you think about me ?" she asked this time, advancing toward him.

This time James answered, and Hermione was shocked by how soft his voice was as he said "You know I always think about you, Cissy."

Her smile grew bigger and she rose on her tippy-toes, slowly embracing his neck with her long arms. "It is quite an upgrade from the shiny rocks you brought me in the garden. The little prince has grown up..." she met his eyes as she whispered "My king."

James let a shuddering breath escape him at the name, his cheeks going pink as Narcissa asked on the same tone "Is the favour you ask the same as before ?"

Wordless again he nodded, this time the same boyish smile that he wore in the game appearing on his lips. An answering smile lit up the witch as she closed her eyes and...kissed him. Hermione blinked several times before a cacophony of "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" rose from the Gryffindors who clapped and whistled as James lifted Narcissa up and dove into the kiss with the same passion as he dove into the game.

"Wow, wow, wow, Jamie boy, it's my cousin and I am her legal guardian so I am going to ask you to control yourself a bit."

Hermione turned toward the familiar voice and Sirius was approaching them, a falsly severe expression on his face as he rose an accusatory finger toward a laughing James. The Gryffindor witch almost broke out in a laughter of her own as she noticed that his hair were now perfect again, falling in thick and luscious strands before mischievous eyes.

He then turned toward and and pulled her wirst until she crashed against him. "Hey doll, you missed me ?"

"I was watching you the entire time, Sirius" reminded Hermione, an amused smile dancing on her lips.

"Yeah, I mean" he gestured to his body in a ridiculously cocky gesture "How could you not ?"

To this, she couldn't help but laugh before the shining eyes of Sirius Black. Before she could call on his attitude, the Gryffindors who had apparently shifted their attention started to sing the name of Black, beating a messy rythm with their hands and feet before an excited seventh year started to scream "Kiss her ! Kiss her !" Before the witch could comprehend what was happening, the whole crowd of Gryffindor had joined him clapping their hands and raising their fists while singing "Kiss her ! Kiss her ! Kiss her !"

Her wide incredulous eyes looked at them as Sirius called "Doll."

She turned to face him and felt his lips cover hers before she had the thought of taking a step back. And then she didn't want to take a step back. Which was bad. Very Bad. She did not come for this.

Didn't you ?

No, she did not.

Was it not for him ?

When she found the strenght to move back in his arms, his mouth searched for hers until it found her again.

Hermione had been kissed a total of two times in her short sixteen years of life. None of them had been bad. But none of them had been a kiss given by Sirius Black. She felt as if her heart had stopped and her entire body from her toes to the tip of her hair were as electrified as if she was kissing a thunderstorm.

For the life of her she didn't have the strenght to pretend that she didn't want it anymore, and she just closed her eyes, feeling Sirius smiling in the kiss.

And then all of the sudden it was finished. James had litterally pushed Sirius aside and was now pointing an accusatory finger toward him "Oh I don't think so Paddy, if I can't, you can't. I officialy name myself Hermione's male guardian and I will make you just as miserable as you make me."

"You can't name yourself her male guardian, James" said Sirius while laughing.

"I think I just did" stubbornly said the seeker.

"But it does not work. Saying officialy doesn't make things offical, Jamie boy." conctinued the beater, seeming to have the fun of life.

"Oh but it does. It really does." answered James in the most childish tone that Hermione had ever heard.

"Fact :" intervened Sirius "You are not of a man of her family"

"I could be, I really could be."

"Oh yeah ? How, Prongsy ? How ?"

James pulled Hermione by her other wirst and put his face close to her before saying gesturing to their dark and heavy curls "Her hair is as crazy as mine."

Sirius's eyes widened and he muttered "Damn."

"Seriously ?" intervened Hermione.

"Proof number 2 !" continued James "My uncle is a sleaze-bag and everybody knows he'll just sleep with anything. She could be his bastard-child. No offense, girlie."

"None...taken ?" incredulously said Hermione.

"I admit myself beat, Jamie boy...for now." added Sirius "Bring it on."

"Oh I'll be busting your balls all year long, puppy. All. Year. Long."

Narcissa seemed wholly amused by the scene, and apparently so happy that she didn't even bother hiding it. Sirius took James's head in an arm-lock and the boys started to mock-fight while laughing.

Hermione had never seen a bigger smile on their face and she surprised herself by how much their joy tugged at her heart.

§§§

The Gryffindor's party was wilder than any Gryffindor's party that Hermione had ever seen in her entire life.

She had found herself staying as close as she could to Narcissa and Emmeline not to lose herself in chaos of laughter, dance, music and bottles of clearly fordidden content passing. James and Sirius were entertaining the crowd by a twentieth re-enactement of the game, with Remus as the disinterested third-party and Peter as...sometimes James's broom, sometimes a bludger used by Sirius in the fire the show.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and congratulated herself for running away when she still had the occasion too. Narcissa Black had the unearthly capacity to command the crowd to make a way for her by with a single glance which came very handy as they finally found a couch where they could observe the madness going on without being in the middle of it. She didn't seem to care much for Emmeline, but was nonetheless polite with her, apparently suffering her presence if it meant that she could continue to learn to know Hermione better.

The Gryffindor witch felt strangely flattered by being the recipient of the attention of such a pretty human being, but it also reminded her that she had to be the first female friend, if not first friend altogether, of Narcissa. The blond had taken as a responsability to make sure to entertain Hermione by telling her everything there was to know about the various students present. Emmeline commenting between sips of firewhisky.

"Now that is Sturgis Podmore. Half-blood. Massively jealous of Sirius, he wants everything he has and wants to be everything he is in approximatively equal parts. Sometimes he can quite...obscene."

"Massive jerk." finished Emmeline.

"Him, right there," she continued " is Edgar Bones. Pureblood. He is the brother of Amelia Bones. Hufflepuff but clearly one of the most lethal duellist of the entire school. He won a very important competition during the summer. He could be a good ally." the witch finished, whispersing to Hermione only, in a thoughtful tone.

"Yeah, he is good lad. Talented Dude...Bit quiet though." approved Emmeline, nodding. "I am going to get another drink, be right back." she concluded, getting up with a spring in her step.

Narcissa looked at her getting further away before bringing herself closer to Hermione on the couch and continuing "This is...Marlene Mckinnon. Sirius slept with her several times."

Hermione choked on her butterbeer, the precious lonely bottle that she had found and in which apparently no one was interested because far to mild to get wasted on. The Gryffindor beat her chest with her fist several time before she could normaly swallow. And Narcissa continued, not seeming frazzled at all "She does not come from a good family, she is a bit messed up and hurt too, so I suppose that Sirius felt that she understood him a bit more than the other girls he slept with. Which is why he met her a few times. She was no good for him, and I dare say he was no good for her nor for any other girls. Like all the other ones, she fell quite a bit for him, but she hid it better than the rest. He never loved her and stopped seeing her in the begining of the year."

"Why are you telling me that ?"

"Because no one else will. Sirius can be quite frightening, and I think everyone knows that he doesn't want you to know. He does really intend to marry you, and he doesn't want to give you reasons to doubt him. Or to think that he is too messed up for marriage. But I don't think it fair for you to stay in the dark. James and Sirius both had a past. With girls. Most of it was just flirting. Everybody knows. That is not uncommon for pureblood men, and the truth is covered quite easily, it is not the same standard for witches as you would expect."

Narcissa turned to look at her and offered her a small smile, a sad and tiny thing "But Sirius can't sleep alone at night. It gives him nightmares. So sometimes he drinks to sleep. Sometimes he finds someone just to sleep beside him. He hates being alone. His parents let himself cry himself out alone in a room when he was a baby, and if he was bad they would turn off the light and leave him in the dark for hours and hours not matter how much he screamed when he was a child. He just hates the dark now too; he is not afraid of it, he just hates it. He loves embraces and take every occasion to touch his friends and the people he loves. I suppose he just likes it, oh and his parents never did hug him. I think James was the first. He was so shocked. Sometimes I did hug him a bit, when there was no one else to see. I had no one either after all."

Hermione's grip on her bottle was so tight that she was worried that she was going to break it. But no matter how much she told herself to let it go she couldn't. She let her blurry eyes fall on the red carpet and pinched her lips as hard as she could not to speak. Or scream.

"His mother never did beat his face too much, it was the only thing that he had and that she was actually proud of. The face of the purest Black. She was obsessed by it. Walburga Black was born a Black and married a Black, her cousin, because she couldn't bear the thought of being in a family that was not the Black Household. When Sirius was born, she looked at him and he looked perfect. She used to show him to every member of the family when he was a kid, dressing him in his best clothes and parading him like a prized phoenix. But his attitude didn't follow. He refused to act perfect. He always got angry easily and he fought with Bellatrix all the time, answering back to Cygnus and sighing at all the crazy ranting of aunt Druella. Walburga would scratch his face and pull his hair, because she had started to hate it : how he looked. He had no right to look like that if he acted like filth. And then he grew up and it got worse. When he was sorted in Gyffindor, it gave him courage and he started to fight back with a new assurance, he answered back and screamed back and insulted everybody. And aunt Walburga started to hurt him bad. She wanted him to hurt as much as he shamed her. She started to use dark spells on him. One time he came for a family dinner covered in blood, he wanted everybody to see. But no one said anything, and it didn't stop her because you see, she still believe that she can right his attitude, that if she breaks him she can build him back perfect."

"Please Narcissa..." Hermione didn't even know what she asked. Please Stop ? Please tell me it got better ? Please don't make me cry here ?

The blond witch had a faraway and all too calm look on her face and Hermione asked herself what did she live for her to say theses things in such a calm manner.

"But Sirius didn't break. Everybody was waiting for it but he didn't." She now had a quiet smile and looked into Hermione eyes once more " You know...He told me that he won't touch you until the wedding night. He said that this is the one thing he wants to do properly, that you will regret nothing. I think if you said that you knew about his past and were jealous about it he would be ready to kill the girls to keep you."

"Why ?" she asked, and she was pretty sure that she was crying.

"I like you." quietly said Narcissa. "Your eyes show that you have seen ugly things too but...You still get so angry and sad when bad things happen. You are good. There are not a lot of good people, you know ? There are even less people who stay good when everything is bad around them. But you do. I like you because it doesn't seem like you'll break either. I think Sirius loves that too in you."

"Are you okay ?" asked a feminine voice close to them.

Hermione quickly dried her cheeks and turned toward the voice. She then met a pair of green eyes that she would know anywhere. Lily Evans. The Gryffindor Prefect was cleraly a very pretty girl. But having grown used to Narcissa's face, it didn't leave as much an impression as it should on her.

"Yeah thank-..."

"We're fine" intervened Narcissa, taking a hold of one of Hermione's hand, as if she was afraid that someone would come to take her away.

"You're sure ?" continued Evans, her eyes fixed on the possessive hold that Narcissa had of her hand.

The blond squinted her eyes and her hand grip Hermione's hand a bit harder than she would have liked. Before she could answer, a male and, clearly drunk enough not to notice how loud he was Gryffindor, spoke behind them "...And then she called him "My king" !"

"Good Merlin" continued another, just as drunk. "That's so hot. If Narcissa Black called me that I think I would've-"

"Hey, not so loud" loudly whispersed another "If James Potter hears you speak..." The noise of somebody vomiting was then heard, cutting the conversation and Hermione wrinkled her nose tossing an amused look toward Narcissa. But when she looked at her, she felt as if the temperature had dropped far bellow 0 as the blond witch was looking at the red-headed Gryffindor.

"Oh Please" muttered Evans while pinching the bridge of her nose "As if Potter's head needed to be bigger."

The blond witch continued to size up the red-head in front of her, taking in every detail, every flaw in a slow up and down look of her pale blue eyes. A smile then came on her lips but it was nothing like her previous unsure and genuine ones, or that too big and joyous one that she had offered to James. That one was dry and cold, and Hermione would've felt very unconfortable if she was the one that Narcissa Black looked at like that.

"Why you don't think that James Potter is born to be a king ?" asked Narcissa, her voice as soft as ever, but there was something in it, her tone was almost sickly sweet.

Lily Evans huffed, seeming to swallow an incredulous laugh before asking, her eyebrows raising high "You...cannot be serious. I mean we're talking about Potter. James. Potter. Playing with a snitch in class, losing a hundred points in a day, humiliating students, prancing like a peacock James Potter. I mean-" The red-headed prefect stopped when her eyes met Narcissa's.

Good Lord, Hermione was impressed at how frightening the Slytherin could look without letting even a word escape her lips. She had her long legs crossed, one hand still holding Hermione's and the other demurely resting on her lap, her fingers taping a slow rythm on her thigh. Her pale eyes were fixed on the blond, almost unbliking.

Lily Evans was not stupid, that was a fact, and she clearly felt the atmosphere change to become even colder. She blinked several times and took a step back. "And he is also your fiancé, now I heard" the Gryffindor prefect slowly said, as if she was reminding herself of the fact "Yeah...Mmmh. I'm sorry if I crossed a line, Black I just-"

"You did." slowly said Narcissa, still staring at her.

"And I'm sorry, I just-"

"No, you're not." cutted Narcissa with the same icy tone.

How amusing...

Hermione saw that the discussion had attracted quite a bit of attention. She cleared her throat preparing to intervene when Lily Evans asked, an incredulous expression on her pretty face as she asked her brows furrowed "Excuse me but, do you have a problem with me ?"

The blond smiled a sweet and polite thing as she calmly answered "I really do."

"Did I do something to you ? Say what you want to say, Black."

"Oh...you really don't want that." said Narcissa now seeming very amused.

"Yes, I do. What I do not want is to be in one of your little mindgame." Lily crossed her arms on her chest, apparently ready for anything the Slytherin would throw her way.

"Very well." said the blond witch, her eyes lit with a very disturbing light. "Let me be very clear. I don't like you. Before I hated you, now I just genuinely dislike everything you are."

Hermione closed her eyes. Okay, it was going south really quickly. She just had to hope that it would not get violent. When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the visibly angry Lily Evans standing before the calm and icy Narcissa Black had really attracted far too much attention. She tried to pull Narcissa's hand to attract her attention but the blond was fixed on Lily Evans.

This was no good. Narcissa Black was an expert with shaping words, and Hermione was pretty sure that she knew quite a lot about skinning someone alive in three sentences. And Lily Evans was a proud Gryffindor, she wouldn't like being insulted at all.

She had to do something.

"You're not a bad person, Evans. But you're not good one either, even if you like to pretend that you are. And with what you do, you have no right to judge anybody."

"With what I do ?" asked Evans furrowing her eyebrows, her cheeks already reddening in anger.

"Oh Please..." continued Narcissa, looking at the standing witch through her thick lashes "I know Severus Snape quite well. But not as well as you do, right ? Will you still pretend that you do not know how he feels ? Do you enjoy it ? Or maybe...Maybe it's beacause you do know that James Potter is a king. And girls like you don't get kings. Maybe deep down, you knew, you always knew that you could never ascend to his level. So you just planned to make him grovel lower and lower and lower until he actually fell to yours."

Hermione didn't think she would ever see Lily Evans as angry as she looked, she seemed ready to slap the Slytherin. "What do you mean girls like me ?"

"This is what's bothering you ? Interesting." said the blond, an amused smile dancing on her lips.

Whispers were now breaking from everywhere and Hermione did the only thing she could think of to break the conflict. She let go of her grip on her bottle and let the butterbeer fall on her making a mess of shirt and skirt.

"Hey, hey, what's happening here ?" the crowd parted in an almost ridiculously organized concert as James Potter advanced, having broken his re-enactement of the Quiddich match before his adoring crowd.

Lily turned to James and was ready to explain the situation in what seem would be quite an indignant tone when Narcissa cut her impulse almost effortlessly. "Everything is fine, James. Hermione had a little accident with her bottle, I'm going to take her to get changed."

"Oh...Alright, princess." he said to Narcissa, a smitten smile dancing on his lips before he turned to Hermione. "You okay, girlie ?"

Hermione was pulling her white shirt as far away as she could to prevent it to stick to her skin. "I'm okay, I'll just go get changed."

"Oh wait" whispersed James, taking off his jacket and putting it in front of Hermione. "Pads would kill me if he learned that anyone saw your...you know, through your shirt." He then turned toward the crowd, furrowing his brows "Hey there's nothing to see here, you go back to your buisiness. Move it !"

As she saw how quickly their audience dispersed, the witch asked herself if James may actually be some kind of king. The Gryffindor took the jacket with a sigh before Narcissa pulled her by her hand toward the Girls dormity of Gryffindor.

§§§

As she was buttoning her new and dry shirt, the voice of Narcissa rose. "Were you afraid that I was going to hit her ?"

Hermione glanced her way before taking a brush and giving her hair aggressive and most likely useless strokes. "You're a smart witch, Narcissa. I knew that you were not going to hit her before the entire Common Room. I also knew that you were waiting for her to hit you."

As the Slytherin smiled, Hermione knew that she had guessed right. It was shrewed. But the blond knew how Lily would react to being insulted and she was going to take advantage of her anger to confirm herself as the damsel in distress in front of the Gryffindors, while painting a very bad picture of the prefect. She couldn't help but admire the intelligence of Sirius's cousin to imagine that kind of trap in the such a small amount of time. And she was indeed very happy to have that kind of woman on her side. And strangely enough...liking her.

Narcissa took the brush from her hand and took her wand from her pocket, twirling it around several strands of her hair in a expert way. The Gryffindor didn't fight her and just asked after a while "Did you even mean what you said to her ?"

The blond arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow "Of course I did" she then added with a smile "I always mean what I say, which is why I don't talk a lot."

At this an answering grin bloomed on Hermione's lips "Right."

The Gryffindor cleared her throat and asked, her eyes fixed on the window as Narcissa continued her handywork "Tell me if I...misread it, but do you want us to be...friends ? I mean I never had a lot of female friends so..."

"I would like that very much. I would like for us to be family even more." quietly said Narcissa.

Family...She had heard this word a lot the last two days. Was it what they were all searching for ?

"You already have two sisters, right ?" asked Hermione.

"I do. Andromeda will soon run away with her Hufflepuff. I don't think we would have seen each other anymore if Alphard was not fighting for custody and the headship. She doesn't really care either way, but I am not mad at her : she loves me, you see, she just loves herself a bit more. And Bellatrix...Bellatrix will be very mad when she'll learn that her precious doll has made decisions without her approval. She does love me, more than I want her to. She is not a good person, Hermione, so she can not love properly."

The blond pinched her lips as if far in a bad memory before shaking her head "I know what bad looks like. And I won't stand still if someone call James Potter bad. James Potter is a good man, one day, he'll be great."

"Do you love him that much ?" Hermione asked, and as she did, she felt that the question was not appropriate. Narcissa Black seemed to have a very peculiar understanding of love, and she never had been the recipient of a healthy one. Beside Sirius. If Sirius could be considered healthy. Her best memory was of James's childish crush, which had taken the appearance of a completely genuine love today, something she was not used to.

The blond effectively seemed startled by the question, as if she had never been expecting it. Then a sincere and beautiful smile appeared on her lips. "Well...He is easy to love."

§§§

"Minnie !"

She descended the stairs to the party that an all too familiar voice welcomed her. She smiled at Sirius but he didn't leaver her the time to answer, taking her by the hand and whisking her away from the Common Room.

Hermione found herself in the all too known situation of running behind a very determined Sirius Black. After an insurmontable amount of stairs, they were one more time in the deserted astronomy tower. She was tempted to let herself fall on the ground just so that she could catch her breath.

"Why ?" she finished by asking, her voice breaking as he coughed in her fist.

The Gryffindor was busy taking off his jacket, before twitching a little black box that he took from one of his pockets and put on the border on the tall open window. Immediately music came out of it. A mini-radio ?

"Oh please tell me you didn't steal this..." she sighed passing an tired hand in her hair.

"Do you really have such a poor opinion of me ?" he answered in an indignant voice, an amused smile dancing on his lips.

"I do" nodded Hermione using a passing hand on her neck in a vain effort to refresh herself. "I really do."

"I didn't steal it. Someone gave it to me."

"Willingly ?"

"Ha ha. I would have you know, doll, that there are actually a lot of people who are crazy about me."

"Yes, yes I saw you and James entertain your sea of fans. What is the radio for ?" she trailed of, getting distracted as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Hermione pinched her lips, of course his forearms would be perfect.

"We didn't have our first dance." simply said Sirius, a light of smug and amused satisfaction shining in his eyes as he caught her staring.

"And you had to make me climb more than twenty flights of stairs to have it because...?"

The young Gryffindor softly caught her hand and brought her closer to him in what seemed like a praticed move. He then manipulated her arms so they would embrace his neck before resting his hands respectively on her waist and on the small of her back as he began to sway with her=.

"Because it is our first dance. This memory should be ours alone."

To this Hermione felt a tiny strech her lips. "Or maybe you wanted to dance under the stars because you're just a closet romantic."

"Hey I'm a closet nothing, you want romance ? I'll fucking romance you alright."

Her booming laughter fell hard against the walls "Your poetry makes me melt, Black. I never knew that you had such a skill."

"Oh I could be a mean-ass smooth-talker, Minnie. I mean if I don't control myself you'll be just...all over me in two minutes."

The witch very inelegantly let out a snort of derision and rose an eyebrow "Game on, Black."

"Really ?"

"Yeah, bring it on. How would you seduce this witch right here ?"

"Well, she is quite a tricky witch, you know."

"Is she though ?"

"She really is. I mean I would first try to show off my dazzling good looks" he continued winking at her in a comic but all too charming way at her, making her body shake with laughter again.

"What if she is immune to it ?"

"I don't know, doll, I showed a bit of skin earlier and I think she liked it just fine." Hermione moved one of her hand into his hair and lightly pulled at them.

"And then, nothing else to show beside your dazzling good looks, Black ?"

"You wish ! I would make her laugh all night. I would make her dance with me, just to give myself an excuse to hold her for hours."

Something dropped in the fun and light atmosphere, and when she met his silver gaze again, the light in it was not the same. There was something calm and grave at the same time in the ever-shifting grey of his eyes. "I would press her against me just like that, to make her see how well we fit together because I mean...she can be quite dense when she wants to."

He then lowered himself so that he spoke to her ear, and she almost immediately wanted to pull back to just look at him again, but her curiousity won and she continued to listen to him. "I'll tell her about our future. About how later we'll live in a house in the country-side with 12 dogs and 10 kids..." At that Hermione snorted a laugh, biting her lips not to ask him if he was mad. "It will be a pretty cottage and there will always be a fire burning in the living room. We'll often dance in front of it just like this, just to have an excuse to hold each other and we'll remember our first dance. I'll kiss her all the time and the kids will think their father is gross but it'll make her laugh. The guys will be there to eat more time than we would like them to be, so we would have to prepare food for a small army each night. It would always be loud, no silence, no cold, no dark. And when the night has grown old and that the guys are passed out on the couch, I'll tell the kids of the bad guys that we caught, and of all the adventures we lived and they'll say "Tell us again about the first dance, the moment when you felt mom falling for you" and they'll ask "how did you know that she fell in love with you ?"

"How did you know ?" softly asked Hermione.

Sirius met her gaze and he was not smiling anymore. "I'll tell that I knew...Because that night she didn't look at the stars. She looked at me. Her hands were cold and shaking but she didn't seem to notice it. She still danced with me...even when the music had stopped, just to have an excuse to stay in my arms."

Hermione immediately stopped dancing, looking at him with an incredulous gaze as she finally noticed that the music had stopped. She intended to take a step back but the hands of Sirius tightened around her waist "I knew because when I painted her a future of dozen kids, warm meals and dancing all night... She had this look, kids. You know this look ? The look of woman in love. This frightened and happy gaze that make a man feel like he is on top of the world."

His hands cupped her cheeks and he said in a voice as low as a whisper as he said "Did you know, Minnie ? Did you know that it's been a while since you look at me like that. Please...Never stop."

To be continued...

Impatient to hear your thoughts !