AN: Back to my regular slow ass update schedule. Thank you for sticking with me on this journey y'all, I love you guys so much, seriously! So originally I had planned to get to some major plot points in this chap, but as per usual with me, I ended up taking my time and merely planting some seeds. You can tell I don't have a beta, because any editor would be like, girl, control yourself. Much like Hermione, I did not mean for some of the content of this chapter to happen...it just sort of did. I hope you enjoy it!

CW: depression, self-medication/substance abuse issues, disassociation, general unhealthy coping mechanisms and adolescent sexuality

Chapter 32: Emotional Whiplash

Still Valentine's Day 1976

For a girl who'd just been dumped on Valentine's Day, Granger didn't look all that properly devastated, Sirius thought as he watched her, Evans and Meadows make their way towards the door of the Three Broomsticks, the girls bundling themselves up along the way, readying themselves to head back out into the cold. Granger looked a bit sad, sure; warry maybe, but not as though she'd been crying her eyes out all day or anything. Mostly she just looked vaguely tired, which was probably more his fault than Diggory's.

Sirius was the one who had kept Granger up half the night, just not in the way most of the castle was currently speculating. He fucking wished. That'd be far less embarrassing than what had actually happened, which Sirius was pretty sure involved, among other low moments, him drunkenly begging Granger not to tell his friends what he'd almost done to Snape. Or more importantly, to his mind, what he'd almost done to Moony. Sirius felt his stomach twist again with the thick guilt that had set in the moment Granger had pointed out yesterday what it was he'd been thinking of doing, and the implications of it for Remus, never mind Snape. Because fuck Snape, honestly. Remus though…Sirius forcibly pushed the down his burgeoning dark thoughts, sidling closer to the werewolf unconsciously until he found himself tight up against Moony's side once more.

Remus glanced at him, brow furrowed, perturbed, and Sirius swallowed thickly, his throat suddenly feeling stopped up with mud. He knew he had to stop. He was being obvious; weird. Remus was clearly at least mildly concerned by his behavior, and the last thing Sirius wanted to do was worry his friend. Not when he'd been…Sirius shook his head, resisting the urge to burry his face in Moony's shoulder again. It wasn't Remus' job to give him absolution for something the werewolf didn't even know he'd almost done, and for something that Sirius had almost done to him.

He'd done much better last night, actually, when he'd gone looking for it from Granger. It was the same impulse; Sirius wanted comfort, physical comfort from someone, but he also wanted someone to yell at him and deservedly tell him what a piece of shit he was. Moony had been indulging him in his need for physical contact all day, albeit confusedly and somewhat reluctantly, but Granger was the only one who could yell at him properly right now, for this. She was the only one who knew what he'd almost done.

Sirius let his eyes drift back to the curly haired witch (Godric, he loved her hair), attempting to distract himself from his internal self-flagellation, if only momentarily. Moony was right, Sirius supposed, about him wanting to fuck Granger. Or at least not minding the idea of it. But that didn't mean he liked her or anything ridiculous like that. Actually, Granger was rather irritating most of the time. She was fit though. And she looked good today, despite having just been dumped. The sweater she was wearing wasn't quite as low cut or as colorful as the one Meadow's had on, but it still clung to Granger's body nicely and made her tits look good, and that was really all you could ask of a sweater on a girl.

Without quite realizing what he was doing, Sirius found himself calling out to her.

"Oi!" he shouted, causing Granger, Evans and Meadows to stop in their tracks, all three of them spinning around to shoot him bemused looks. "Granger, wait!"

"You've got to be kidding," Remus muttered from next to him, the werewolf's words mirroring the expression on Granger's face perfectly. Except Granger's face, in contrast to Moony's requisite pre-full moon pallidness, was rapidly turning red.

In fact, she looked rather affronted that he'd dared to address her at all, much less so loudly and in public, which did nothing to stop Sirius from scrambling over Remus' lap and out of the booth in order to plant himself in front of her.

Evans was looking worriedly between him and Granger, chewing on her lip, while Meadows surveyed the scene with an air of amused intrigue, the way she seemed to observe most unfolding dramas. Granger, for her part, looked borderline apoplectic.

"Can we, er, talk?" Sirius asked, running one of his hands through his hair in a way that Lily, for one, noted was highly reminiscent of the ridiculous maneuver Potter often pulled in front of her, except less studied.

"You want to talk," Granger said incredulously, which Sirius didn't really think was fair. Personally, he thought they had a hell of a lot to talk about after last night, and Granger herself had implied as much just that morning.

"I think we ought to," Sirius said, gaining confidence and not a little indignation at Granger's attitude. "You said this morning you'd deal with me later, yeah? Well, it's later."

Behind him, Remus let his head fall into his hands while James and Peter guffawed. "Hopeless," the werewolf muttered under his breath. "Complete fucking lack of tact."

"You want me to deal with you?" Granger asked, voice dangerously low as she strode towards him, eyes sparking. It was kind of hot. "Merlin, Black, our entire class already thinks we're shagging after this morning, and now you accost me, in public, after I've been broken up with by my boyfriend, on Valentine's Day, to loudly demand that I deal with you?"

"Do you want to go outside then?"

Hermione really couldn't believe she'd agreed to this. She tightened the sash on her coat, trudging along the slippery, snow covered streets of Hogsmeade with Black and waiting for him to say something. Anything. He'd been the one who was so insistent they talk, and yet now he was silent next to her, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his stupid, faded, leather jacket which couldn't, by the way, possibly be doing very much to protect him from the biting wind, unzipped as it was. Did he think he was Brando or something, Hermione thought derisively? Probably. All Black needed was a motorbike and he'd be straight out of 'The Wild One'.

They were already garnering a multitude of looks, ranging from curious to downright scandalized. This little excursion was going to do nothing but fuel the nasty rumors about them, Hermione knew, and particularly about her. Black would probably be lauded for it, actually, not that anything physical had happened, or was going to happen, between them, as Hermione had spent practically all day reiterating to various people. Since the damage was already being done though, she figured she might as well take the opportunity to talk to Black about her animagus revelation the night before, now that she'd had time to process it a little. If Black even remembered her having it. She hadn't lied to Amos or her friends when she'd said that he'd had been extremely drunk last night. His level of intoxication had been…concerning to her, to say the least.

"How's your hangover?" Hermione asked eventually, for lack of an alternate opening once it became clear Black wasn't going to say anything himself.

"Long gone," he muttered, kicking at a clump of ice. "Prongs keeps sober up on hand, so…"

"Prongs," Hermione murmured thoughtfully. "That's Potter, right?"

Black nodded in affirmation, though somewhat cagily. Apparently he did remember what she'd put together last night, though he was obviously uncomfortable with what she'd discovered. The whole thing was entirely his fault though, so Hermione couldn't really find it within herself to have any sympathy for him on that front.

"What is he then? Some kind of long horned beetle?" Hermione wanted to know.

Black let out a shocked bark of a laugh at her guess, the sound cutting sharply through the air and drawing even more eyes to the pair of them, Hermione noted warily. Thankfully, mostly for Black and co, no one was close enough to be able to hear what they were saying.

"Nah," Black said once he'd finally stopped laughing at the thought of Potter as a beetle and sobered once more. "He's a stag."

"Ah," Hermione said, visualizing it in her mind and nodding after a moment. "That suits I suppose. Less so than your form though."

"Yeah?" Black asked curiously, cocking his head to the side in, it had to be said, a rather dog like manner. It shouldn't have been endearing, especially when Hermione was so irritated with him, but somehow it was.

She chuckled. "Black. Sirius Black? Your name essentially means 'Black dog'. It's all rather obvious, isn't it? The only thing missing is a starshaped marking on your coat, though maybe I just missed it. But actually, I was mostly referring to your mannerisms."

"I think maybe I should be insulted," Black said dryly.

Hermione shrugged. "Take it however you like."

They were both silent again for a minute before Hermione asked what she really wanted to know. "How long did it take you?"

"About two years."

Hermione shook her head, a little in awe despite herself. It was incredibly advanced magic, stuff that was usually only performed under Ministry supervision by pre-screened, qualified adults. It was stunning that three teenagers had been able to manage it all by themselves in as little as two years; dangerous, arrogant and entirely fool-hardy, but amazing nonetheless, given that they'd managed to pull it off.

"Whose idea was it?" she asked next.

"Mine," Black admitted readily, smug.

"Of course it was," Hermione said drolly. She should have known. A scheme so bold and reckless as to involve attempted (and ultimately successful) illegal animagus transformations as teenagers on the part of the Marauders in order to run around with their werewolf friend once a month on the full moon could only have come from Black. He'd always been particularly talented at Transfiguration too, along with Potter, which was more than she could say for Pettigrew. She could imagine the mousy boy would have only succeeded in killing himself in his attempts if it weren't for the other two to help him along.

"What's Pettigrew's form?" Hermione wondered aloud, curious now that she was thinking of him. "You call him Wormtail?" she paused, making a face at the nickname. "That's horrid, by the way."

Black laughed lightly at her obvious distaste, which was as much for Pettigrew himself as it was for the name 'Wormtail', though it was possible Black didn't realize that. "Pete's a rat," he explained.

Now it was Hermione's turn to laugh. "Well that fits as well, doesn't it," she said, admittedly nastily. Perhaps she was cruel, in her disdain and distrust for the boy, but Pettigrew could be cruel too. She'd seen it herself.

Black didn't comment, merely arching an eyebrow at her.

Hermione arched one right back. "I don't really think you're in any position to be judging me at the moment, Black. Other people might be," she admitted, thinking of Amos, "but you certainly aren't."

"I know that," Black said lowly, his voice having gone a bit rough. He caught her eyes, and Hermione was taken aback by the almost desperate look in his own.

"Is that why you dragged me out here, Black?" she asked, coming to a stop near the side of a building and taking the opportunity to lean against the brick wall. "To chastise you?"

Black shrugged, returning his eyes to the ground once more; embarrassed, possibly.

Hermione felt her chest twinge with empathy and just maybe something else that she couldn't quite put a name to at the moment.

"You really are very eager for me to yell at you, aren't you Black?" she observed softly, studying him in changing light. It was getting darker quickly now, though it was still early enough, not much past half five o'clock.

Black shrugged once again. "What can I say, Kitten, I'm a masochist," he said, voice gravelly. "Only for you though."

"I doubt that's true."

Black raised an eyebrow, and Hermione was happy to say that some of the desperation seemed to have waned from his expression, though an underlying melancholy still remained in spite of Black's attempt at his typical biting humor. "That I'm a masochist or that it's only for you?"

Hermione smiled. "That it's only for me. I imagine Remus might get a bit rough with you lot on the full moon, and I can't see you minding," she said teasingly.

Black laughed, and Hermione couldn't help but be pleased by his reaction, though she wasn't sure how this whole thing had devolved into her sincerely wanting to cheer Black up, but there they were.

Hermione was still irritated with him, not to mention aghast and saddened and furious about what he'd almost done to Remus (and Snape, she supposed, though that seemed less important somehow), but Black had a way of making her almost manage to forget about how upset she was with him. Or at least put it to the back of her mind.

"You're not wrong," Black told her, still smiling, just a little. "Moony gets a bit rough, yeah, but it's nothing me and James can't handle. You've seen me, and Prongs is fucking massive as well, plus his horns. Comes in handy."

"Yes, about that," Hermione said sharply, suddenly remembering one of the reasons she was, indeed, quite angry with Black. "That was very duplicitous of you. In the common room, I mean. Skulking around as a dog, letting everyone think you're some stray who's wandered in."

"I wasn't skulking," Black protested hotly.

"Well whatever you think you were doing it was still deceitful! It's one thing for you to cuddle up to Remus when he knows you're not actually a dog, it's quite another for you hop on the sofa and shove your head in my lap when I don't!"

"Well you didn't seem to mind when I did the exact same thing last night as a human, Granger, so forgive me for thinking you wouldn't care!"

"You seem to be confusing the order of events there, Black," Hermione countered, slightly flustered despite herself at the reminder of the details of their interaction the previous evening. "And for the record, I only allowed that yesterday because you were in a right state and I was concerned!"

"Well thanks a fucking lot!"

"You're welcome!"

They'd drawn closer to each other the more worked up they'd got (which was typical for them, though neither party usually noticed it as it was happening, until suddenly they were within inches of each other, screaming, panting and glaring) and so Hermione was able to see the exact moment Black deflated, the fight draining out of him abruptly, replaced by reluctant contrition.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright," he said, eyes darting away from her as he apologized. "I didn't—I wasn't consciously trying to do anything odd, Granger."

"Well that's comforting."

"Fuck, would you let me explain?" Black demanded. "I get kind of shameless when I'm Padfoot, alright? I just sort of….do whatever feels good," he said with a shrug.

"And how is that significantly different than how you operate as a human being in your day to day life?" Hermione asked pointedly.

"Because I don't think about it!" Black shouted, letting out a sort of frustrated growling noise (which was as alarming as it was unintentionally funny) before taking a much needed moment to visibly reign himself in. "Everything is just…easy, when I'm Padfoot," Black told her once he'd regained some semblance of control over himself, his voice significantly quieter than it had been a moment previously. "I don't get embarrassed about what I want, or feel guilty about it or anything."

Black let out a long breath of air through his nose as he seemingly struggled to land on the best way to make her understand.

"As a human, it's like; you get all fucked in the head over shit and think about how you shouldn't want to do things. Certain things. As Padfoot none of that's there. I just do stuff because it feels good. I can be as uninhibited and physical as I want and no one thinks it's fucking weird, or takes it wrong. I wasn't trying to-to trick you or anything, Granger," Black said earnestly. " I just felt like shit, and you smelled really good."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up, an involuntary blush rapidly beginning to overtake her already cold-pinkened cheeks. He thought she smelled good?

"Plus," Black went on, not yet done, apparently, "I figured you'd probably like me better as a dog than as a human, so I thought there was a good chance you'd pet me. Which sounded pretty fucking nice at the time, Granger, not gonna lie," Black shot her a heated glance here, as though daring Hermione to find fault with either his line of reasoning or his actions. "And you did, and it was," he finished defiantly when she said nothing, folding his arms across his chest for good measure. "Nice, I mean."

In the wake of all of this, Hermione simply stared at Black for a moment; floored.

"I don't like you better as a dog than I do as a human, Black," she said eventually, softly.

Quite bizarrely, Black looked almost alarmed by this revelation. "Thanks," he grunted reluctantly after a moment of letting her words hang awkwardly in the air between them, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground rather than her. "Wouldn't blame you if you did though, Granger," he added. "Fuck, sometimes I like me better as Padfoot. It's easier than getting drunk or high all the time, anyway. Less of a harsh come down, but similar effect."

"Black-" Hermione started, voice trailing off into heavy nothingness when she was unable to find what she wanted to say to him.

"It's just nice sometimes," Black muttered, still not looking at her. "Not to have to deal with people. Not to have to think so much. Not to have to really be there."

Hermione's chest felt hollowed out. Suddenly she found herself avoiding looking at Black all together, worried that if she did so right now she'd be unable to resist the impulse to pull him against her and hug him desperately for a long time.

"Life is pain," she said instead, staring straight ahead into the increasing darkness. "Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Black snorted. "Where'd you pick up that happy little aphorism, Granger?"

Hermione almost smiled. "It's from a muggle movie."

"Huh," Black said thoughtfully. "Don't think I've seen that one."

"You wouldn't have, no."

They lapsed into silence, the air between them thick with a sort of unspoken, unnamable tension that Hermione found herself desperate to disrupt before very long.

"You think I smell good?" she blurted out, intrigued by this confession on Black's part despite herself. It had brought forth a sort of delighted form of embarrassment in her when he'd said it, and Hermione couldn't be certain whether she wanted to chase the feeling or tamp down on it. Impulsively, foolishly perhaps, she was chasing it.

Black looked sideways at her, seemingly gauging her apparent emotional state before he answered. In the end he must have decided that Hermione wasn't offended, because he shrugged, offering a simple, unapologetic, "Yeah, Granger, you smell good, " in affirmation.

"Like what?" Hermione whispered, feeling strangely warm all of a sudden despite the chill February air.

Black's gaze, when he finally directed it fully at her, looked heated as well. "Warm," he breathed, inching closer to her and inhaling shamelessly, breathing her in right there. "Like apples and vanilla. And books and ink."

"And that's good?"

"Mmm," Black hummed. "It's very good, Kitten."

He had drawn inexorably nearer to her over the last few moments, getting closer and closer until suddenly he was crowding her against the wall, and Hermione, for some unfathomable reason, was letting him. She felt almost drunk, though she'd had nothing more potent than butterbeer that afternoon. She was drunk on Black's proximity, Hermione thought, too far gone to be anything more than distantly panicked by the realization.

"Is your—is your sense of smell enhanced when you're a dog?" she asked shakily in an effort to distract herself from the way that Black had leaned forward and settled his chin into the space just above her shoulder, his head turned into her neck.

"Yes," Black murmured, and Hermione could feel his lips moving just above her neck, the stubble of his jaw scraping against her there in a way that made her breath hitch and her back arch, just slightly. "But I can smell you almost as well from right here, Kitten. And you smell really good."

"I'm still mad at you," Hermione said stubbornly, even as Black moved his lips fully onto her neck in order to impart his next sentence directly against her skin.

"I know," he said huskily, and Hermione wondered where the line was between Black merely speaking with his lips poised directly against her and an actual kiss. "I've been a bad dog, yeah Granger?" he whispered into her neck, breath hot. "You want me to beg for your forgiveness?"

"I—"

"Because I'm pretty sure I could get you to forgive me."

And Black was definitely kissing her now, the line had officially been crossed. Unbidden, Hermione found herself tilting her head to the side, giving him access as he moved his mouth over her neck, licking and sucking there.

"Black," she gasped, and it was supposed to be a protest, at least a token one, but somehow his name came out much more breathily than Hermione had intended, falling from her lips like an exhalation of pleasure.

Black groaned in response, squeezing her waist (how long had his hands been there?) and tugging her closer with sudden desperation, slotting his jean clad thigh roughly up between the two of her own, hitching her up slightly against the brick wall and making her feel unaccountable dizzy. Hermione whined involuntarily at the sensation of Black's leg pressing so intimately and unexpectedly against her, his hips now aligned with her own. What they were doing was wrong, she told herself firmly even as one Black's hands traveled up over the contours of her waist, coming to a stop just below her breast. He traced the underside of it lightly with his thumb through the material of her sweater, sweeping the digit teasingly back and forth there in a way that made Hermione sigh and arch against him, her stomach consumed with liquid heat.

It was extremely ill advised, Hermione thought distantly, somewhere through her haze of pleasure, what she was doing with Black right now; what she was letting him do to her. He was still lavishing attention on her neck in a way that was surely leaving marks, something that, in a more rational frame of mind Hermione would have been absolutely mortified by. And how had even her subconscious known Black would like to bite, she wondered, thinking of her x-rated dream from a few weeks previously, the memory of the fantasy compounding the intoxicating feelings coursing wildly through her now as the real Black nipped at her neck and ground himself against her in a way that made her gasp and push back to meet him.

Hermione felt untethered. This was so much. This was too much. It was overwhelming. It felt really good.

Nothing she had done with Amos had ever happened so fast, or felt so frenzied.

And perhaps it should have been that, the thought of her ex (her very incredibly recent ex) that brought Hermione back down to earth and made her stop what was happening, but it wasn't. It was Black himself.

"Are you wet for me yet, Kitten?" her murmured into her neck, briefly detaching his lips from it in order to voice the question.

With those words, and the realization that yes, she was actually, Hermione's sense of clarity abruptly returned to her.

"Stop," she said firmly, shoving a lust-addled Black bodily off of her, much to his apparent dismay.

"What," he said stupidly as he stumbled away from her, staring at her in confusion with wide, pupil-blown eyes.

"We can't do this," Hermione said, much more calmly than she felt, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

"Why the fuck not?" Black wanted to know.

"First of all, we're in public. I'm not going to be branded some kind of—some kind of back alleyway harlot!"

Black snorted. "Everyone already thinks we're shagging, Granger, you said it yourself. Who cares if someone sees us snogging?"

"Just because the entire castle happens to think we're doing...that doesn't mean we should confirm it for them by giving a them show!"

"Be kind of hot though, wouldn't it?"

"Merlin, you are the limit!" Hermione said shrilly, gaping at him in disbelief. "I'm not having sex with you in an alleyway, Black! I'm not having sex with you at all!"

"Well you certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself getting there!"

Hermione flushed. "That's not the point!" she screeched, ignoring the suddenly unbearably smug look on Black's face and barreling on through her embarrassment. "This is a bad idea! You are a bad idea!"

"Am I?" Black asked, and Hermione couldn't decide whether he looked more amused or angered by this assertion on her part. Frankly, she didn't care at the moment.

"Yes! You are!" Hermione shouted. "I'm not Rebecca Forrester, Black. I'm not going to let myself be used by you as merely another form of escapism in order for you to distract yourself from the shit you're going through in your life!" she spat. "My body isn't available as a defense mechanism for you!"

For a moment, Black rather looked as though she'd slapped him. He rallied fairly quickly though.

"Escapism isn't always a bad thing, Granger," he advised her lowly, a new edge in his voice. "You ought to try it sometime, it might loosen you up a bit."

"And what exactly is it you think I need to escape from, Black?" Hermione asked, voice dangerously thin.

"You tell me, Granger. You wanna explain to me who Harry and Ron are? Or why you have such a fucking, suicidal hard on for figuring out what Voldemort's up to?"

"I don't think I'm the one with a 'hard on' here, Black, as you so delicately put it," Hermione said stiffly, pointedly eying his crotch.

Black spread his arms wide, looking determinedly unapologetic. "Yeah, for you, Kitten, not for fucking Voldemort!" he told her, his directness making her feel flushed and hot with renewed embarrassment. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but you didn't seem to mind my hard on so much a few minutes ago when you were grinding down on it, so don't expect me to fucking apologize for enjoying myself!"

"Well don't expect it to happen again! Because it won't!"

"If you say so, Granger."

"I do!"

"Merlin and Agrippa, you are so fucking stubborn!"

"Because I won't sleep with you?" Hermione asked, affronted.

"For a multitude of reasons, that among them, yes!"

"I'm not obligated to sleep with you, Black," Hermione said icily.

"I never said you were ," he spat back heatedly. "That doesn't mean it's not obviously something you'd enjoy if you weren't incapable of letting yourself have a good time!"

"Godric, Black, you're so full of yourself!"

"I know what I'm fucking good at, is all!"

Hermione shook her head. "That's actually sad," she said, an observation Black looked utterly bewildered by, but she wasn't about to bother wasting her time explaining something to him which would undoubtedly be lost on him. "I'm going back to the castle, don't follow me."

Black sighed, running a hand through his already highly mussed hair. "It's dark, Granger," he pointed out. "Your friends have already left. I'm not letting you walk back up to the castle by yourself."

Hermione grit her teeth, glaring at him. "Fine," she allowed eventually. "You can come with. But don't try and talk to me."

"Not a problem," Black said, morphing into Padfoot before her eyes, causing Hermione to fall back briefly in shock before gathering herself together admirably quickly, as though people you'd just made out with in alleyways and had screaming matches with often turned into dogs.

They proceeded to trudge back to the castle together in a silence which managed to be both excruciatingly heavy and awkward, this despite the fact that Black was currently incapable of speech, so it wasn't like there was any other viable alternative. The whole way there Hermione found herself fighting the urge to steal fascinated glances at Black's animagus form, managing to succeed about half of the time, something for which she felt she really ought be congratulated, all things considered.

Sirius, for his part, found himself considerably cheered up by the fact that Granger couldn't seem stop looking at him, obviously impressed by the physical reality of his animagus transformation. Padfoot reveled in her attention, fruitive as it was, and the still human part of Sirius' brain reveled in the fact that, with his canine enhanced sense of smell, he now had a definitive answer to the question he'd asked Granger earlier; she was most definitely wet, and gods did it smell fucking amazing even through her jeans, especially knowing that he was the one who had caused it.

Valiantly, Sirius managed to keep from shoving his head eagerly between Granger's legs for the duration of their walk back to the castle, despite how deliciously enticing she currently smelled there. He had a feeling that, even with her lingering arousal, it was a move Granger would not have appreciated. Besides, he'd much rather be in human form when he finally got to do that.

In retrospect, Hermione probably should have thought to hide the rather lurid series of hickey's now decorating her neck with glamour charm before she arrived back at her dorm room.

"Hermione, you're ba-," Lily trailed off abruptly, green eyes widening to unprecedented levels at the sight of her fellow muggleborn's throat. "Godric, were you mauled?"

"Damn," Hermione muttered, reaching up self consciously to finger her new set of bruises. "I forgot that he…did that," she finished weakly.

"Was it Black?!" Dorcas shrieked, looking completely delighted by this turn of events, though not entirely surprised. The blonde was practically bouncing up and down, nearly vibrating with excitement as she waited for Hermione's confirmation that she and Black had, indeed, snogged.

The curly haired witch nodded helplessly in response and Mary, who had been observing the developing scene before her with hard, narrowed eyes reached up and closed her curtains with a definitive tug, effectively removing herself from the situation, not that any of her dormmates paid much attention.

"Tell. Us. Everything," Dorcas commanded, pulling Hermione over to join her and Lily on the red head's bed, the revision they'd been doing now firmly abandoned.

Hermione buried her face in her hands, letting out a low moan. "I am in so far over my head here."

AN: I don't know if I'm entirely happy with this? But there you are and I hope you like it! Reviews give me everything! Next up: A very momentous full moon! I promise I'll actually get to it next chapter!

Also, if you don't get the movie reference in this chap, I shun you. Just kidding, but seriously go watch The Princess Bride.