Chapter 153: A Lingering Sort of Look

It took Sirius long moments before he was ready to move. His arms were as shivery as Hermione's as he worked himself back onto his elbows.

'I think,' he said quietly. He paused to swallow, and continued, 'I was… too rough.'

Hermione's fingers tightened reprovingly in his hair.

'You always regret it after,' she murmured. 'You don't have to – I don't.'

'No – I mean it,' Sirius pulled himself further off her. 'I'm honestly… worried I've done damage – if I pull out,' he said more urgently, 'and you're bleeding Hermione –'

Hermione's fingers feeling around where they were still joined cut him off. There was rather a lot of fluid down there, between them. The unsexy product of sex, and, Hermione suspected, the attempt of her body to manage Sirius's size and ruthless friction. And with his rigidity diminishing, his member shrinking, she could feel more squelch out as Sirius shifted slightly for her hand.

Wincing a little as her fingers felt along her tender vulva, Hermione scooped some of it up. It was one of those embarrassing moments of intimacy: Hermione bringing her fingers up so they could both look at the liquid clinging to them.

A faint, pearly white. Not a trace of pink or red. Well, not yet, Hermione thought. From what she'd learned since that awful night she'd awoken cramping, it may come later.

It calmed Sirius somewhat, though.

'Please tell me,' Hermione said, wiping her fingers on the towel, 'what was wrong with doing this in the shower? Clean up would have been easier.'

Sirius glanced at her. He wasn't wholly relaxed, but he responded in kind.

'If you'll believe me,' he said quietly, 'I was trying to avoid a strange and unnatural workout.'

It was only then that Hermione remembered he'd been flat against shagging her into a hard floor before. That was probably a part of what he was regretting.

'Let's go to bed, Sirius,' she said, slipping her hand into his. 'You can check he's okay. We'll keep an eye on it.'

It was a wonder to be back in their room. To be back to normal. And, remembering how she'd left it, Hermione was gratified, overwhelmingly, to see Sirius had taken the time to put Aya, Bernard, and Ruxpin back on her bedside table for her: back into their cuddle.

She did let him check Monkey, with her hands over her eyes once again. The baby was fine – actually, according to Sirius, looking better than earlier that day. And Hermione let him Heal anything that might turn into a bruise he'd left on her skin, so he'd never have to see it if it did.

There was a trace amount of blood, spotted in one of Hermione's three times she had to get up over the night to use the loo. It was quickly exhausted by a few wipes and was, she was sure, really just the result of friction, rather than anything worse.

It was another, infernal hot flash that had her waking for the fourth time. It was upsetting though, this time, more because she really wanted to heed Sirius's sleepily mumbled 'Come back here' when she climbed, once again, out of the bed.

It was the fourth time she'd pulled herself out from under his arm, this the first night in what felt like ages where she'd actually enjoyed being curled in beside him. Like they'd always used to. Having that interrupted was not only annoying, it made Hermione long desperately for times past.

'Just a minute,' she whispered, placating, to Sirius, and stalked over to a window, swung it open, and hung her boiling, naked torso out into what felt like a balmy February night.

Behind her, Hermione heard poor, tolerant Sirius bundle himself more into the covers.

When, after five minutes, she still hadn't cooled down, Hermione drew back in, left the window open, and went back to bed.

'You keep the covers,' she whispered to the eyes, glinted by Muggle streetlamps outside, peeking at her just over the covers Sirius had yanked around his ears. Folding the blankets back, Hermione doubled them over Sirius, careful to tuck Crookshanks in too, and flumped down with her back against Sirius, her front bared to the cooler air. A moment later, Sirius obviously deciding the intense heat radiating from Hermione was sufficient to keep it warm, he stretched his hand out from under his toasty cavern, and left it resting just atop her waist.

Sirius fell back asleep quickly. Like horniness had returned to her with a vengeance, Hermione spent the time she cooked the bed and all the air around her imagining a drunk Professor Black… who'd ended up alone with her after perhaps… something like the Yule Ball. In her imaginings, Hermione could let alcohol strip away his inhibitions, and not have to worry about him regretting it after.

It was lovely, then, when she woke to a room lit by an early rise of daylight to find, poking between her buttocks, was something appreciably hard.

Hermione had apparently gotten cold at some point after she'd fallen asleep. The covers were pulled close about her and her back was flush with Sirius's warm body. The window was closed, and between that, the close wrapping of Sirius's arm, and the neat arrangement of the covers around her, Hermione's unconscious search for warmth had, it seemed, not gone unnoticed by Sirius.

Twisting in his arms, Hermione looked back over her shoulder at him. In the bright light of a beautiful morning, she had to giggle. Eyes closed, Sirius was lying very still, a big, ginger scarf draped around his neck.

'Cold, Crookshanks?' Hermione whispered.

Third eyelids sliding back with luxuriant slowness, Crookshanks gave Hermione a brief look, closed his eyes again, and started purring.

'He's a bloody spoiled cat,' came Sirius's muttered pronouncement, revealing he wasn't asleep. Eyes still shut, his arm tightened around Hermione's waist as her giggles started back up again. 'And if there's any chance you'll feel sick or otherwise not in the mood, then I implore you: don't move!'

Scooping her hair away up the pillow, Hermione faced forward once more, and got comfortable: wiggling her backside closer against Sirius's pelvis so his morning wood found its way to a nice nestle further between her legs.

The low, quiet groan came from right behind her. Hermione grinned into her pillow.

'Is that you saying "don't worry Sirius, I won't leave you with blue balls today"?'

Hermione grinned harder.

'I don't think your testicles ever really go blue, Sirius.'

Sirius's hips pulled back a little before pushing, imploringly, forward. Hermione squeezed her legs against his length, aiming the tip of him up nearer where it was wanted.

'I swear they do,' Sirius groaned back. 'Check 'em now. I've been lying like this for a full half hour.'

'Naw,' Hermione sympathised, only a little facetiously. She rubbed the back of his arm. 'Aren't you a gentleman.'

Sirius grumbled something inaudible.

'Hmm?' Hermione snickered. 'What was that?'

'… If I didn't have a millstone of a cat around my neck, you'd have been woken up very differently.'

Hermione bit her lip, but before she could adequately stay her amusement enough to point out she'd have liked that, Sirius had rubbed her middle. The tone of his voice changed.

'Still tender?' he asked, cautious.

'No,' Hermione answered. Despite his exhaustion last night, Sirius had made sure she wouldn't be sore in the morning. 'And there's no cramping either. I feel fine.'

Sirius was silent for a moment, then he lifted the covers a little and wafted warm air towards her nose.

'Man smell,' he said. 'Feel nauseous yet, or all good?'

Hermione pushed his arm back down around her waist, halting the escape of warm air.

'I don't feel nauseated at all, Sirius. So perhaps you showering before bed is a good idea.'

'Mm,' was the verbal half of Sirius's response. The other half involved another suggestive pull and prod forward of his hips.

Hermione reached a hand back, found Sirius's hip, and stroked it.

'Did you shut the window?'

'Yes I did,' Sirius said, his disgruntlement wonderfully good-humoured. 'After I woke up freezing, you having yanked all the covers off me, with Crookshanks trying to burrow under me for warmth. I had to spoon you just to avoid hypothermia.'

He was in a far better mood than he had been last night. Hermione responded to it with a happy giggle.

'Sorry!'

'Mmf.' Sirius prodded a finger into her belly. 'Least it wasn't as bad as the time you first stole all my covers, then decided to be even more discourteous by rolling over and biting me on the shoulder when I tried to get just a corner of the blanket back.'

Hermione recalled Sirius telling her about that at the time – his story evidenced by the tooth marks on his deltoid – but she had no memory of doing it. She lost her battle with sniggers, remembering a disgruntled Sirius telling her he'd been kind enough to just prize her jaws from his skin, roll her back over, and snuggle in close for warmth.

'Mione,' Sirius grumbled, 'did you miss the part about how I've been lying here, like this, for half an hour?'

Hermione's laughter doubled. She choked it back.

'Do you want to know what kind of dream I was having?'

'If it wasn't a sexy one, I'd rather you told me about it after you shag me.'

'It was a sexy one.'

'Oh…'

Hermione grinned.

'A very sexy one?' Sirius asked, suddenly sounding interested.

'Yes.'

'Was I in it?'

'Yes.'

Hermione could hear the wide, cocky grin in Sirius's next words:

'My favourite kind of dream. Was it just me, or…'

'Just you,' Hermione provided truthfully – even her subconscious, despite the levels of depravity it'd gone to, appeared to have little attraction to the idea of anyone else being involved in her saucy times.

'So…' Sirius said deliberately, his fingers trailing up towards a nipple. 'What was I doing?'

'Well –' Her silly sniggers broke Hermione off. To begin with, he'd had very few inhibitions. But Hermione didn't want to pressure the real Sirius into that. 'You were vey authoritative,' Hermione carried on, 'I'd been a naughty girl…'

'I was a teacher, wasn't I?'

Hermione giggled hard.

'Actually,' she corrected, 'you were headmaster.'

'I was promoted!'

Hermione laughed harder. And he'd spanked her before sending his fingers between her legs. But she wouldn't tell Sirius that either.

'You had me bent over the windowsill,' she went on, 'where you had some very insistent ideas about where you wanted to…' Hermione pinched her legs together and nuzzled her backside back against him. '… Put yourself,' she finished. 'Which, I figure now, may have been influenced by events occurring outside my dream.'

'For the sake of my reputation,' Sirius said, 'I didn't,' he nudged her back with a thrust of his hips, 'put myself here on purpose. I woke up like this. Then,' (almost absentmindedly, Sirius had begun rolling and tugging at her nipple), 'I think I might have dozed off for a few minutes, because I could've sworn Crookshanks was giving me a lecture on brutishly ravaging a sleeping woman…'

Giggling heartily into her pillow, Hermione had no response.

Sirius gave her nipple a longer tug, pulling it away from her chest.

'Does what dream-me did count as foreplay?' he asked hopefully.

Hermione snorted.

'You like foreplay,' she accused.

'I've had half an hour of foreplay between your wiggling buttocks,' Sirius deadpanned.

'Did you like it?' Hermione snickered.

'And you're still teasing me.'

Hermione battled her amusement back under control.

'I think,' she said slowly, tracing her hand down towards where the tip of Sirius's erection was poking out from between her thighs, 'it's time for Crookshanks to get off you.'

Her fingers reaching it, Sirius stilling, Hermione circled the head of his penis with one finger, then brushed a tantalising stroke over the little hole in the tip.

Sirius came back to life. Hermione heard the grumpy mewl of a poked cat.

'Come on mate,' Sirius said to him. 'You've done a great job defending the dignity of your pretty human, but now she can be considered consensual again, I need you to sod the hell off.'

Another mewl. Hermione could feel Sirius's squirming and nudging, trying to convince Crookshanks his chosen sleeping place wasn't a good, comfy idea after all. Crookshanks's jaws sucked open audibly, his yawn trailing into a more wakeful noise before his teeth clacked shut.

'There's a good boy,' Sirius praised him as Crookshanks rose, the bed shuddering with his stretch. Using Sirius's body as a concourse, he padded off, tail held high, paused to glare back at Sirius, then hopped off the bed.

'Sirius,' Hermione said, 'he'd want to be let out… Can you reach your wand?'

That she was still swirling a taunting finger over the head of the very needy and sensitive organ trapped between her thighs might well have contributed to Sirius's muttered response of 'I don't fucking wanna reach my fucking wand,' as he dutifully twisted around and tried to reach it.

He did manage it, and with Crookshanks's parting mew, Sirius shut the door behind him and dumped his wand somewhere. A split second later, he had a breast in his palm, and her clitoris pinched up between two fingers.

Hermione squeaked and smacked his hand away from the tender bud.

'Still too sensitive there,' she answered Sirius's questioning hum.

Depositing his hand on her lower abdomen, Hermione reached back down herself, lifting Sirius's erection against her with scooping fingers. He got the hint, shifting his hips back and pressing a slow stroke, controlled upward by Hermione, along labia that were already wet. Sirius's next stroke, pulling her pelvis back as he pressed forward, slipped the head of him between her folds, providing a more satisfying place for him to rub himself.

For all his apparent urgent need, Sirius started slowly, his hand gentle on Hermione's boob, the smooth pushes of his member against her a controlled arousing rubbing. Hermione lifted her leg, holding his length more firmly to slip along her, pressing from opening to a gentle brush past her clitoris.

'Here…' Sirius pressed a kiss to her shoulder, his hand running down from Hermione's abdomen to her thigh. He held it, lifting her leg up and out of the way under the covers. Curling an arm around to hold onto the back of his neck, Hermione moved herself back against him, pressing the bulbous head of his erection deep into her flesh, controlling it and lingering in just the right places. Then she pressed it in against her opening, and sucked in a breath as Sirius, holding her in place with hands on her leg and abdomen, thrust himself up into her.

Two slow, hardly satisfying strokes, and Sirius pulled himself right back out.

With a moan that turned into a harrumph, Hermione flopped onto her back, glaring up at Sirius's departing body.

He flashed her a grin, climbing onto his hands and knees above her, cool air rushing in as the covers slipped down his back. Resting down on his hands over her, he caught her lips in a kiss that almost made Hermione forget her irritation.

'Not satisfying,' Sirius explained succinctly, breaking away as he climbed between her legs. 'Base of my cock felt neglected.'

'Oh well,' Hermione said, sarcasm creeping into her tone, 'wouldn't want tha–'

Right to the aforementioned base of his cock, Sirius cut her off with a thrust home.

'No,' he uttered, a little hoarse, amusement dancing in his eyes as he took in the look on Hermione's face. 'We wouldn't. You,' he pulled out, almost to the tip, and, his body undulating into the thrust, pushed straight back in, 'like me deep.' His hips ground up against Hermione, like he had done the previous night, but with less vicious force. Hermione's legs pulled up, knees raised on either side of him, letting him go deeper. Another, rolling, expert thrust, the very base of Sirius's erection coming to seated against Hermione's opening, his pubic bone grinding a circle against her clitoris. 'Balls deep,' Sirius breathed out, head drooping, his eyes nearly shut.

Hermione clutched at him, feeling in his back Sirius's next thrust, rolling up into her on bent arms by an incredibly powerful body.

'You do like that…' Hermione said breathily.

Sirius's head came down, wet, brilliantly hot mouth and swirling tongue making Hermione forget everything until she felt the harder smack of Sirius's hips into her.

Sirius sped up, and Hermione hung on, gripping around Sirius's shoulders as the glorious man arched down to suck more than just her nipple into his mouth; hanging onto his lower back and using it as leverage to raise her hips, thighs tight on Sirius's sides, to meet every rolled press into her – wishing, in that moment, she had some mirror that would let her see better. See that roll of his back, see his power from another angle. See, up close, where he was inside her.

'Christ…' Hermione breathed out hoarsely, Sirius sucking her nipple deep into his mouth and doing some twiddling thing to it that twisted her insides around patches of warm, sweet pudding. 'You… are –' Sirius rocked hard against her, Hermione's back bowing to meet him. 'Fuck you're good…' she finished on a single exhale.

And, thus, he pulled away. Hermione found a growl and flung it at him as her spine thunked back down to lie flat on the bed, Sirius still holding her legs, knees bent, up.

Sirius took a couple moments to breathe, his member pulling out with an audible pop and rubbing back along the outside between Hermione's very wet folds.

'I know,' he said, too aroused and focused to look arrogant. 'Very good.'

Considering he'd just pulled out, Hermione didn't agree anymore. His erection was teasing her with every shift, held to her aching folds with little more than its own weight. Sirius settled his seat with bent knees around Hermione's hips.

'Then stop teasing me,' Hermione grumbled, 'and prove it.'

Sirius met Hermione's gaze, his eyes dark and focused. Deliberately, he stuck her ankle on his shoulder, reached down, and without needing to look, popped just the head of his manhood into her.

'I am,' he said, voice a deep rumble, pulling out and pressing himself up along the outside of Hermione's slit, nudging her clitoris.

'No you're –' Hermione grabbed for the taunting length of him – but she didn't get far. Letting go of himself, Sirius caught both her wrists, pressing them back.

'Not!' Hermione finished, giving him a dirty look.

'Yes,' Sirius pressed her wrists between her breasts, holding them there, 'I am. I'm…' a self-satisfied glint in his eyes, Sirius grabbed hold of himself and started tapping the head of his erection against her. '… Going to make you scream.'

'Big wor-o-ohrds…' With whatever breathy noise her throat produced as her head tipped right back into the pillow, Hermione forgot herself, her body seeping to jelly as, poised up on his knees between her legs, hoisting her hips up with arms grabbed around her thighs, Sirius, suddenly deep inside her again, renewed one hell of an onslaught on her senses.

It took Hermione a moment to realise her hands were free. She hadn't a clue where to hold on. Her legs up over Sirius's shoulders, she couldn't quite grab him.

There was sexual aggression, and then there was that look Sirius's face found as he watched her writhe under him, grabbing for the back of his hand – her own nipple – anything. His look, teeth half-grit, was one that said a pure I'm going to fuck your brains out. And lord it was good –

And then he stopped. Again.

Hermione yowled into her pillow, one arm having shoved under it in her search for something to grip. A breathless chuckle came from the devious bastard between her legs.

Slowly, Hermione panting, twisting to look up at him, Sirius began his teasing again. All cheekbones, jaw, black shaggy hair… he stared down at her with such devious heat in grey, intense eyes. Dark tattoos, happy trail, tightly powerful chest… Sirius watched himself slide frustratingly soft strokes of the purple head of his cock along between Hermione's folds, patted her clitoris lightly, slipped down to almost press himself into her before popping back up and sliding again…

He cupped her breast in a hand, palming it gently up her chest. Kneading it around, thumb swirling down to twiddle her nipple.

'Is this,' Hermione said hoarsely, 'more payback?'

Sirius looked up at her, meeting her eyes as the base of his member, textured by tightly lifted testicles, rubbed against her.

'No,' he rumbled back. 'This is a "by the way, Mione, love, ask me to shag your brains out of your ears more often".'

Hermione lifted one foot from where it had fallen to the crook of his arm, hoiked it with the other ankle around his neck, and yanked his head toward her.

'Sirius Black,' she panted, 'I am asking you! I'm about as crazed as I get!'

Sirius positioned himself, eyes on her: waiting for it.

'So fuck me!'

He did. Hard and fast. Until Hermione's toes started to curl into his hair.

Then he stopped, leant over her on one arm, Hermione's knees hooked up around his shoulders, her head screaming obscenities into the pillow bunched up around it.

And then he did it again.

'A "fucking… rat bastard" am… I?' Sirius panted, once more providing no more than the faintest stimulation with lightly twirling fingers slipping around Hermione's nipple and up to her neck.

Hermione tore the pillow away from her face.

'You're driving me mad!'

'I always… make sure you come.'

'I could've come around four times by now!'

It gave Hermione pause: Sirius's eyes crinkled up into a look so startling in its juxtaposition of loving kindness with abject lust…

'How much,' Sirius murmured, 'do you want me?'

Hermione's hand fisted in his hair. Somehow, in the wild tangle of messy tendrils and splayed, interlocking limbs, she got his mouth down to hers and kissed him with every ounce of her tangled, roaring insides.

And, starting slow, then building to exactly what she needed, Sirius gave it to her.

Hermione did scream. The scream, and the thing that could've been an explosion inside her, the last thing she knew before her eyes returned from attempting to view her own brain.

Sirius had sprawled on his side next to her, one limp arm over his head, fingers dangling from his hand. For once, his body didn't look dense with bound strength. It looked like every muscle but the ones his ribs were using to expand and contract had taken a much needed nap.

Her own body a wishy-washy, liquid warm milk feeling, Hermione watched his abdomen in a sedate and rather concussed bliss. Watched it hollow and rise with every breath, in those moments where Sirius looked like nothing more to her than an exhausted man she adored; his treasure trail seeming to sneak up and peek from around his sweet little navel, then compress down towards where Sirius's sparsely-haired thigh, drooped against the bed, hid his most vulnerable organs from sight.

He had to be the most extraordinary creature Hermione had ever laid eyes on.

The muscles were melted along her arm. Hermione reached a wavering hand out and let it drop to rest on the broad elbow over Sirius's head. His arm thunked off his face, landing on the bed before him, leaving a mess of ruffled hair over his cheek.

Sirius's eyebrow lifted against an eyelid that looked stuck closed. He pulled his eyebrow up higher and managed to peel the heavy lid away from that one eye, peeking over his arm at Hermione.

Quite breathlessly, she started to laugh.

Sirius groaned. His arm and shoulder clenched, pulling his face to Hermione's hand where it rested, listless, on his forearm. He nuzzled the backs of her fingers, then lay limp once more.

Hermione drew a deep breath.

'While that was great,' she breathed, 'if you do it again, I'll hit you.'

'You did hit me,' Sirius moaned back.

Hermione started to laugh again.

'I did?'

'Several times,' Sirius answered. 'And you threatened to rip my nuts off.'

'Well –' Hermione fought down her giggles. 'You can say they're not blue now.'

'Not blue,' Sirius muttered. He rolled a little, his arm shifting away down the bed. He peeled his eyes open again and looked at her. ''Cause I don't think they're there anymore. When you can move again, mind going looking for them? I think they blew off and might be hiding in the laundry corner.'

Hermione tried to say "those are some nuts", but she couldn't get the words out. She was laughing too hard.

When she could talk again, she asked, 'So you're adequately satisfied, are you?'

Grey eyes peered at her, Sirius's head pillowed heavily on the bedsheet.

'Do I look like a man who's adequately satisfied?'

'Definitely.'

'Mm…' Sirius took a deep breath and let it out, half into the mattress. 'Tell me, who was better? Dream me or real me?'

'Well,' Hermione said, smiling back at him, 'you do both have a profound preoccupation with making me ask for it.'

The corners of Sirius's lips pulled into a somewhat abashed grin. He pushed himself up, got a wrist under his head, and flopped back down, his head pillowed on his arm, viewing Hermione with a face less squished into bedclothes.

'Cock-brain does like making you do that,' he admitted. 'He's very… well, he likes to know he's wanted.'

'You're blaming it on some mythical brain that lives in your penis?'

Though Sirius started laughing, he chose to maintain that there was, indeed, a mythical "cock-brain" in his penis. But decided it was one that wouldn't want to fuck her while she was bent out a window like his dream self had done – on the grounds that would both risk other people seeing, and that it was dangerous.

It was his good humour that had Hermione's spirits particularly high, and staying that way. For all it'd been her who'd made him miserable, Sirius being expansive, fun… It was what it had always been for everyone in this house: a sign they could get through anything, and that all would be okay. Like it had before, seeing Sirius grin back at her, seeing him laugh and joke, was some miraculous balm to Hermione's soul. One that made her feel normal.

With a small groan, Sirius pushed himself up, disentangling his legs from Hermione's. She rolled onto her back as he sat up.

'You know, Mione,' he said, 'if you still wonder about when you look sexy, the sexiest you look is in the throws – for lack of a better way to say it – of passion.'

'Oh… Yeah?'

'Mm…' Sirius's eyes were trailing over her. They moved to watch his hand as it smoothed along Hermione's thigh. 'Really, bloody sexy,' he said, looking up at her. 'Especially when you can't find anything to grab onto. You go wild. Boobs bouncing all over the place, your hair all over the place… And then your back does that arching thing…'

'It's very irritating,' Hermione pointed out, 'not having anything to hold onto.'

A slow smile stretched in Sirius's cheeks. Oh, he knew that. He did it on purpose.

Watching with close interest, Sirius slipped a hand under Hermione's leg and lifted it up, moving it to the other side of his crossed legs.

'And this,' he went on, 'is the second sexiest you look.'

Hermione stretched a little and shifted her hair away from under her shoulders. Settling back, she relaxed, watching Sirius's eyes travel over her, her legs comfortably splayed around his.

'And why is that?' she asked, though she thought she could guess.

Sirius's hand slid from her thigh, running up over the shallow hill of her belly, up to trace the underside of her breast.

'You,' he said, hand travelling back down again, 'look like I did a very good job.'

'Just…' Hermione caught his hand before it dipped down past her pubic bone. 'Be gentle.'

Sirius nodded, his hand slipping, very gently, down to thumb open her labia. He missed her overstimulated clitoris completely.

'You wear,' he murmured, intent on what he was looking at, 'thoroughly shagged beautifully.'

'Already, Sirius?' Hermione asked, pulling a pillow to prop her head up so she could better see him. 'I will warn you: if you're horny again, I'd better go to the loo first.'

Sirius gave a small shake of his head, and her a kind smile. He had moved his fingers away already. They were back on her thigh.

'I'm not horny,' he said. 'Not yet, at least. I'm just… lecherous, I suppose,' he finished, with some wry humour.

Watching him trail his fingers over her, gazing down at her, Hermione thought she understood that. Her attraction to him was often either giddy or mindless, but… watching him as he looked at her, she could relate to a desire to just look. To touch. A sedate sort of appreciation that ballooned her heart to see Sirius treating her to it.

It wasn't as though he didn't do this. Perhaps not for so long, usually, though. However…

An eddy of panic escaped a silenced part of Hermione's mind. She gulped it back, wanting badly to ignore it.

Perhaps she'd gained some of that water weight puffiness back over the night. She'd started associating that with Sirius's longer lingering looks. Like he wasn't looking at just her anymore, sometimes. That he was looking at them. His wife. His baby.

It wasn't a wholly fair assumption. Sirius had gazed at her with abject affection many times even before she'd become pregnant. With that gentle tenderness.

But he'd only began looking long between her legs after sex when they'd started trying for a baby. As though that sight meant something to him.

That, though, Hermione told herself, could simply be a progression in their sexual relationship. Or in Sirius's understanding of his own kinks. Maybe Sirius just hadn't realised he liked the sight so much before he had a permanent partner.

His hand flat and warm on the open stretch of Hermione's adductor muscle, Sirius smiled up at her. His eyes were beautiful, surrounded by gentle crinkles.

It eased the whirl of panic for a moment; made Hermione smile back. Made the ballooning of her heart win out against the eddies of panic.

And then Sirius's hand trailed up, and splayed, fingers as wide as he could get them, palm flat to the gentle bump of her belly.

Hermione took a moment to realise it was her heartbeat that was making her abdomen and his hand bounce slightly. Not anything else.

The balloon in her chest warred horribly with the release of a great wave of panic, freed from that part of her brain she'd tried so hard to shut away.

For her, it'd been just her and Sirius in the room. But for Sirius, Monkey could be in the room with them. For Sirius, that was something he yearned to be close to.

Hermione's mind tried to throw up a block against registering the terror. Tried to keep the wondrous joy of the morning unmarred. Tried to push it away. Keep the morning to just her and Sirius.

But Sirius's hand was warm and claiming on her belly. And it made Hermione feel like there was just too much in her chest at once. Love, and an overwhelming panic. All at once.

Her eyes squeezed shut, her head flinching away so she couldn't see it. Her lips pinched. Against some kind of cry she wasn't able to diagnose but sought to hold back.

Sirius noticed. Hermione recognised it in how he lifted his hand away. How he rested it, instead, on her chest between her breasts. He stroked her there with his thumb.

'Mione…' He said softly. He was silent for a moment, then went on, just as softly, 'Sorry. I didn't think…'

Her fingers found his hair as he lowered a kiss to her collarbone. He was tentative; uncertain. But Sirius seemed to take heart in Hermione's fingers curling into his hair. Scratching against his scalp.

'I'd rather you didn't keep it from me,' he said, gentle. He was lying himself over her, finally giving Hermione him to hold onto. She did, grasping him tightly and very aware of how he bowed his head to rest, so sweetly, on her shoulder. 'Tell me it's too much for you. I'll avoid doing that… just… let me know about it – what you're feeling.'

'I don't want to k-keep M-Monkey from you!'

'I can live with that,' Sirius said quietly. 'Just don't keep you from me.'

Hermione's fingers dug into his back, one tear trickling from her eye to drop onto her pillow. She lifted her head to press it into his shoulder. Took immense comfort in how broad and strong it was – how permanent and loyal.

'It's overwh-whelming,' Hermione breathed, gripping him all the tighter. 'Th-the panic is m-massive!'

She felt Sirius's nod against her shoulder. He understood that.

But Hermione wasn't whirling into a gasping, shaking variety of panic. She felt it nearby. Could so easily see herself going there. It just felt like Sirius was weighing her down – keeping it at bay as he lay his long body more firmly atop her.

'You wanted a family Christmas,' he whispered. 'Me, you, Monkey, and your parents, around a tree decorated the way yours was when you were a kid.'

Hermione tightened up, pressing her mouth hard against Sirius's shoulder. But Sirius wasn't finished.

'You worry about what your parents will think, but imagine they've already come to terms with it. Don't blame you for anything. Imagine it: good food, gifts, and laugher. Your parents playing with a grandchild. A baby who gives you their first smile that day…'

Hermione did imagine it, hanging on around Sirius's substantial body. She could imagine, too, Sirius sitting on the floor and playing with his tiny child. Could see an older child throwing sticks outside in the square for a large black dog who made them laugh. Could see Sirius having to climb into a tree to rescue a terrified little kid who'd climbed further than they should have.

None of the images she found easiest to imagine had her in them.

'And then, afterward,' Sirius went on, 'us back in our room, the baby sleeping in their cot, as we lie together, just like this. I'll make you laugh. I'll say something ridiculous that'll make you smack me with a pillow.

'I'll be here for everything, Mione. I'll get Monkey out of his cot and we'll sit together. And still make you smile. Still make you want to smack me with a pillow – but you can't because I'm holding little Monkey. And you'll tell me so. You'll tell me you want to take him from me so you can.

'You're not alone, Mione. I'll be here. Things will change, but it will be slow. And anytime you need me, anytime it's too much, I'll be right here.'

Sirius had spoken softly, but with a caring sort of poignancy. And Hermione could see a different image. She could see a little baby lying flat on their belly, watching an indignant ginger cat with wide-eyed fascination. Could see herself watching on, making sure Crookshanks didn't develop a jealous streak with the child. And Sirius snickering, him sitting right behind her.

It was just a little image, but it helped. Made it all seem a little less too much. Made it seem like it could all be simply little moments Hermione would store away in her mind to reflect on later.

Rather than any real response to what he'd said, Hermione's response was a breathy, 'I'm not getting rid of Crookshanks.'

It was a statement that gave Sirius pause, but he went with it.

'Of course not,' he said. 'Crookshanks stays.'

'You love him, don't you? Crookshanks…'

Sirius hadn't moved. He was still lying over her. Though he had wiggled his hands under her back and shoulders. Holding her.

'Sure I do,' he answered. 'Hard not to. He's a funny little arse.'

Hermione nodded, wiping away the last of her tears with a hand curled up over Sirius's shoulder. She'd never once even questioned her devotion to Crookshanks. They'd never once even questioned the cat coming to join them in their bed. Crookshanks had just been a part of their daily life, without needing to consider it.

It was an odd reassurance, a cat obviously far from a human child. But it was reassurance all the same.

And a baby would be squishy like a cat. Hermione did love picking Crookshanks up to snuggle him close to her chest.

A new image occurred to Hermione's mind. One of her bouncing a baby, held close to her, around a nursery. Shushing the child off to sleep. Sirius finding them only once she'd put the little kid down in their cot, and being all smiles and crinkled eyes, first for Monkey, then just her.

'I want a back garden with a tree, Sirius,' Hermione told him. 'And you need to be the one who goes after them if Monkey climbs up and gets stuck.'

'I can do that,' Sirius whispered, game.

Hermione nodded, sniffling. The panic was, for this occasion, thwarted. She was glad for it, and glad, further, that Sirius didn't pay obvious attention to her belly again that day. Or, didn't beyond making sure with the Hysteriagel that Monkey was still fine. And Sirius let Hermione get ready with her hands over her eyes first for that.