Chapter 3
A.N. Thank you ever so much for your reviews! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Sorry I'm a bit high any way: Oh wait a minute, thanks for the reviews, and thanks to Vela-Chan for being my first reviewer.
Disclaimer: see first chapter. Okay here's the next chapter:
~Sirius' POV~
Sirius Black was sitting on his old bed, his back resting on the headboard. He had a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Fire-Whiskey in the other. He'd been sitting like this for several hours now, thinking, only moving to take a sip of whiskey or a puff on his cigarette. So by now he was rather pissed. He'd been thinking about James and Remus, Hogwarts and Lily. And Peter. That Rat.
/Bastard/
Well of course, this little trip down memory lane wasn't really helping to improve Sirius' mood. He was now even more depressed and guilty than he had been to begin with.
Sirius took another sip from the now half empty bottle of Whiskey. It burned, but not as much as the guilt did. Fortunately, Sirius was brought out of his reverie by the doorbell.
/Doorbell?/
Oh doorbell. Sirius put the bottle down on the bed-side-table, and got up off the bed. He on his way to the door he put his cigarette out, leaving it in the ashtray.
Sirius made his way down the flights of stairs until he was on the ground floor again.
/Finally, someone to keep me company/
/Yeah, but I bet they won't stay long/
/Piss off/
Sirius reached the door, unlocked it, and opened the door.
/Hermione?/
Hermione was standing on his doorstep, looking rather nervous.
"Hermione?" Sirius said, echoing his thoughts.
~Hermione's POV (for a little while)~
Hermione looked up at him. He was stubbly, but other than that, he looked nothing like-
The image of Sirius dead on the floor came floating back into Hermione's mind, and she let out, quite accidentally, a little whimper.
"Erm.Hi.Sirius.I came to see you." Hermione said lamely, shifting from foot to foot.
"Right.come in." Sirius said, standing aside so that she could come through the door.
/What the hell am I going to say?/
/Don't ask me, this was your stupid idea in the first place/
/Ha-/
"Nothing has happened to Harry has it?" Sirius asked, a concerned and worried look weaving its way onto his face.
"No, nothing like that, I just." Hermione trailed off, looking up at him, which was quite a stretch, seeing as how he was about 6'3, and she was only 5'2.
Sirius looked right back at her, haunted brown eyes searching hers.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, before: "You were.uh.saying?" Sirius said, seemingly coming back to earth.
~Sirius POV~
Sirius looked into Hermione's dark chocolate eyes.
/Hope she's okay./
/More the point, why's she here?/
Sirius quickly said, "You were.uh.saying?"
"Oh yes, well I.um.I don't really know." Hermione paused. She had to say more than that. "Well you see, I had this dream, and.well.I was rather worried." Hermione finished.
/Huh?/
/She had a dream dick head. God were you listening, or were you too busy being a pervert?/
/I was not being a-/
Sirius stopped, realising that he needed to respond before Hermione thought him too insane.
"A dream about what?" Sirius asked, genuinely curious as to why she had turned up here in the middle of the night. Not that he wasn't glad of the company.
/Slightly strange company but./
/But at least its in a skirt?/
/W-/
"Why don't we go down to the kitchen?" Sirius asked while Hermione was thinking of how to reply.
"'K," said Hermione, following Sirius closely down the dark steps that led to the kitchen.
Sirius opened the door into the windowless basement kitchen, and they walked inside.
"I'll make some tea," Sirius said, going over to the kitchen counter.
"Sugar?"
"Yeah please."
Sirius brought to mugs of tea over, and sat down beside Hermione. Sirius turned his chair slightly towards Hermione, and she did the same.
"So, about this dream?" Sirius said, as he lifted up his mug.
"Well I had this dream, about.well.um.you." Hermione said, looking down into her untouched mug of steaming hot tea.
"About me?" Asked Sirius, raising his head to look at her, but then returned to nursing his tea.
"Yeah, I um came up to your room," Hermione said, but instantly regretted it.
Sirius head shot up. He looked at her, locking her eyes with his. He had a slightly scandalized expression on his face. But it didn't look genuine.
/She came up to my-/
/Hehe, this is getting good, Hermione's been having sha-/
/Oh shut up, maybe its not how it sound-/
/Yeah, but you want her to have been shagging you, don't you?/
"I mean I came up to your room and I found you, well, rather upset." Hermione said, quickly.
"Upset?" Sirius asked.
"Er.yeah, anyway you were in a bit of a state, some er stuff happened, and er, well, um, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay." Hermione said, looking back down at her now not-so-warm tea. She quickly drank a mouth full.
"Stuff?"
"Yeah um, you were talking to yourself, and you had.a.a.you had.well.a.um.razor blade." Hermione stammered quietly, hoping that Sirius wouldn't hear.
But he did.
/Razor blade? Razor blade?/
/She thinks you would-/
"What happened?"
"Well you sort of, well you started crying, and I hugged you and stuff-
/Oooo and stuff?/
/Oh shut up/
-And you stopped, but then you did this spell that threw me backwards through the wall, which felt really weird, god it was horrible and then." Hermione trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes. She dropped her head down so that Sirius couldn't see.
"And then?" Sirius asked, as he reached foward, lifting up her chin so that their eyes met.
"And then.and then you." Hermione burst into tears.
Sirius leaned forward and rapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his lap.
~Hermione's POV (for a little while)~
/What the hell?/
Sirius had just pulled Hermione into his lap, to her surprise. Then Hermione remembered her dream. Sirius had done the same sort of thing then. God, what if. Hermione cried harder, burying her face in his shoulder.
Sirius rapped his arms around her, one hand smoothing down her hair.
/God he's warm/
/Mhm./
/Hay, I didn't mean it like that/
/Oh yes you did, in his lap twice in one night, well done/
/Uh-/
"Hermione?" Sirius whispered. Hermione could feel his breath against her cheek. Warm breath. Hay wait a minute, whiskey breath?
/He's been drinking?/
/Ooo his pissed, how exciting/
"Yes Sirius?" Hermione said, still sniffling, but thankfully not crying still.
"Do you want to tell me what happened next?" Sirius asked gently, pushing her back slightly so that he could see her face.
"Er." Did she?
"Er okay." Hermione said. Again to Hermione's surprise, he didn't push her off his lap. His arms were still rapped tightly around her, so that she couldn't have moved if she had wanted to.
/Not that I want to be sitting in Sirius' lap./
/Liar. Of course you do, like I said, twice in one night, he must like you/
/Shut up about the lap will you?/
/N-/
"I tried to get back in, but I couldn't. Then I heard blood hit the carpet and I knew you had." Hermione broke off, tears welling up in her eyes again.
"God.I.Do you think that I would.?" Sirius asked, slightly shocked.
"No." That wasn't true, she did think he might, or she wouldn't have come over here. Sirius was obviously thinking along the same lines, as he said, "Though you must do, or you wouldn't have come out here."
"No, I, well, I wasn't sure, I needed to check. I'd never forgiven have myself if something had happened to you, If I hadn't come here-"
"No, the point is, there's some part of you that thinks I'd kill meself." Sirius said, pushing her back into her chair.
~Sirius POV~
Sirius pushed Hermione roughly back into her chair.
/She actually thinks that I would do that? She thinks that I would leave Harry? How can she thi-/
Hermione stood up, angry. The tears that were in her eyes had gone.
"No. That is not true. The only thing that made me come is that I care about you, and I didn't understand why I would dream about you killing yourself. I didn't understand what would make me dream something like that, so I thought that I was seeing what was going to happen. I didn't believe it, but I had to check. I had to make sure nothing had happened to you." Hermione said, her voice rising in anger.
/She cares about me?/
/Yep, well, this should make things easier-/
/Shut up you pervert-/
"Well maybe I'll not bother next time, maybe I'll just risk letting you die, leaving Harry with no-"
"I would never leave Harry on his own." Sirius growled, standing up to, which made her look up at him.
Hermione didn't say anything. She knew he wouldn't leave Harry, but it just slipped out.
/How dare she? How dare she say something like that? I would never leave Harry-/
Hermione looked up into Sirius' eyes, which were flashing in anger, which caused the anger to bubble violently in her stomach.
"Yeah well it's not my fault that your cooped up here is it? It's not my fault you can't do anything for the Order, is it? Maybe, if you didn't let yourself get so miserable or depressed, you'd have more company, maybe if you didn't drink so much-"
"Fine. Maybe we should lock you up here with Kreacher, and I'll go back to Hogwarts. Lets see how you feel, not being able to speak to James- " Sirius stopped immediately after he realised what he had said. Guilt flooded his eyes and he looked down.
/Shit/
/Shit indeed/
Hermione stood there, shocked. James? James?
"I knew it, you think of Harry as James, and that's the problem. He's not James, and he never will be. Harry may look like him, and he may sometimes remind you of him, but James is dead. And Harry can't replace him. And you've got to realise that." Hermione stated, her hands coming to rest on her hips.
"I know James is dead. I know Harry can't ever replace him, no one can ever replace James." Sirius said, almost shouting to begin with, but had quietened almost to a whisper by the end.
Hermione looked down at her feet. She shouldn't have said that.
Sirius moved away, walking over to the door leading into the pantry. Hermione sat down, but got straight back up again when she saw Sirius come out of the pantry carrying several cans of cider.
"What are you doing?" Hermione asked, seemingly affronted by the alcohol.
"Getting pissed," Sirius said simply, sitting down in a seat at the opposite side of the table and opening a can with a pop.
"You can't drink in the middle of a.a." Hermione said, trailing off, trying to decide what exactly they were in the middle of.
"An argument? No offence but I'd rather drink." Said Sirius, taking a swig from his cider, looking up briefly at Hermione, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"Well," Hermione cast around for something to say, and then she remembered the whiskey on his breath, "Don't you think you've had enough to drink?"
"No," said Sirius, carrying on drinking.
"Want a can?" Sirius asked, shoving a can towards her.
"Oh no, your not getting me drunk so you can." Hermione stopped as Sirius chair scraped the ground as he got up. He walked towards her, coming around the table. He was a couple of steps a way from her when he said,
"So I can do what Hermione?"
/Fuck you?/
A.N. Thank you ever so much for your reviews! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Sorry I'm a bit high any way: Oh wait a minute, thanks for the reviews, and thanks to Vela-Chan for being my first reviewer.
Disclaimer: see first chapter. Okay here's the next chapter:
~Sirius' POV~
Sirius Black was sitting on his old bed, his back resting on the headboard. He had a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of Fire-Whiskey in the other. He'd been sitting like this for several hours now, thinking, only moving to take a sip of whiskey or a puff on his cigarette. So by now he was rather pissed. He'd been thinking about James and Remus, Hogwarts and Lily. And Peter. That Rat.
/Bastard/
Well of course, this little trip down memory lane wasn't really helping to improve Sirius' mood. He was now even more depressed and guilty than he had been to begin with.
Sirius took another sip from the now half empty bottle of Whiskey. It burned, but not as much as the guilt did. Fortunately, Sirius was brought out of his reverie by the doorbell.
/Doorbell?/
Oh doorbell. Sirius put the bottle down on the bed-side-table, and got up off the bed. He on his way to the door he put his cigarette out, leaving it in the ashtray.
Sirius made his way down the flights of stairs until he was on the ground floor again.
/Finally, someone to keep me company/
/Yeah, but I bet they won't stay long/
/Piss off/
Sirius reached the door, unlocked it, and opened the door.
/Hermione?/
Hermione was standing on his doorstep, looking rather nervous.
"Hermione?" Sirius said, echoing his thoughts.
~Hermione's POV (for a little while)~
Hermione looked up at him. He was stubbly, but other than that, he looked nothing like-
The image of Sirius dead on the floor came floating back into Hermione's mind, and she let out, quite accidentally, a little whimper.
"Erm.Hi.Sirius.I came to see you." Hermione said lamely, shifting from foot to foot.
"Right.come in." Sirius said, standing aside so that she could come through the door.
/What the hell am I going to say?/
/Don't ask me, this was your stupid idea in the first place/
/Ha-/
"Nothing has happened to Harry has it?" Sirius asked, a concerned and worried look weaving its way onto his face.
"No, nothing like that, I just." Hermione trailed off, looking up at him, which was quite a stretch, seeing as how he was about 6'3, and she was only 5'2.
Sirius looked right back at her, haunted brown eyes searching hers.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, before: "You were.uh.saying?" Sirius said, seemingly coming back to earth.
~Sirius POV~
Sirius looked into Hermione's dark chocolate eyes.
/Hope she's okay./
/More the point, why's she here?/
Sirius quickly said, "You were.uh.saying?"
"Oh yes, well I.um.I don't really know." Hermione paused. She had to say more than that. "Well you see, I had this dream, and.well.I was rather worried." Hermione finished.
/Huh?/
/She had a dream dick head. God were you listening, or were you too busy being a pervert?/
/I was not being a-/
Sirius stopped, realising that he needed to respond before Hermione thought him too insane.
"A dream about what?" Sirius asked, genuinely curious as to why she had turned up here in the middle of the night. Not that he wasn't glad of the company.
/Slightly strange company but./
/But at least its in a skirt?/
/W-/
"Why don't we go down to the kitchen?" Sirius asked while Hermione was thinking of how to reply.
"'K," said Hermione, following Sirius closely down the dark steps that led to the kitchen.
Sirius opened the door into the windowless basement kitchen, and they walked inside.
"I'll make some tea," Sirius said, going over to the kitchen counter.
"Sugar?"
"Yeah please."
Sirius brought to mugs of tea over, and sat down beside Hermione. Sirius turned his chair slightly towards Hermione, and she did the same.
"So, about this dream?" Sirius said, as he lifted up his mug.
"Well I had this dream, about.well.um.you." Hermione said, looking down into her untouched mug of steaming hot tea.
"About me?" Asked Sirius, raising his head to look at her, but then returned to nursing his tea.
"Yeah, I um came up to your room," Hermione said, but instantly regretted it.
Sirius head shot up. He looked at her, locking her eyes with his. He had a slightly scandalized expression on his face. But it didn't look genuine.
/She came up to my-/
/Hehe, this is getting good, Hermione's been having sha-/
/Oh shut up, maybe its not how it sound-/
/Yeah, but you want her to have been shagging you, don't you?/
"I mean I came up to your room and I found you, well, rather upset." Hermione said, quickly.
"Upset?" Sirius asked.
"Er.yeah, anyway you were in a bit of a state, some er stuff happened, and er, well, um, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay." Hermione said, looking back down at her now not-so-warm tea. She quickly drank a mouth full.
"Stuff?"
"Yeah um, you were talking to yourself, and you had.a.a.you had.well.a.um.razor blade." Hermione stammered quietly, hoping that Sirius wouldn't hear.
But he did.
/Razor blade? Razor blade?/
/She thinks you would-/
"What happened?"
"Well you sort of, well you started crying, and I hugged you and stuff-
/Oooo and stuff?/
/Oh shut up/
-And you stopped, but then you did this spell that threw me backwards through the wall, which felt really weird, god it was horrible and then." Hermione trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes. She dropped her head down so that Sirius couldn't see.
"And then?" Sirius asked, as he reached foward, lifting up her chin so that their eyes met.
"And then.and then you." Hermione burst into tears.
Sirius leaned forward and rapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his lap.
~Hermione's POV (for a little while)~
/What the hell?/
Sirius had just pulled Hermione into his lap, to her surprise. Then Hermione remembered her dream. Sirius had done the same sort of thing then. God, what if. Hermione cried harder, burying her face in his shoulder.
Sirius rapped his arms around her, one hand smoothing down her hair.
/God he's warm/
/Mhm./
/Hay, I didn't mean it like that/
/Oh yes you did, in his lap twice in one night, well done/
/Uh-/
"Hermione?" Sirius whispered. Hermione could feel his breath against her cheek. Warm breath. Hay wait a minute, whiskey breath?
/He's been drinking?/
/Ooo his pissed, how exciting/
"Yes Sirius?" Hermione said, still sniffling, but thankfully not crying still.
"Do you want to tell me what happened next?" Sirius asked gently, pushing her back slightly so that he could see her face.
"Er." Did she?
"Er okay." Hermione said. Again to Hermione's surprise, he didn't push her off his lap. His arms were still rapped tightly around her, so that she couldn't have moved if she had wanted to.
/Not that I want to be sitting in Sirius' lap./
/Liar. Of course you do, like I said, twice in one night, he must like you/
/Shut up about the lap will you?/
/N-/
"I tried to get back in, but I couldn't. Then I heard blood hit the carpet and I knew you had." Hermione broke off, tears welling up in her eyes again.
"God.I.Do you think that I would.?" Sirius asked, slightly shocked.
"No." That wasn't true, she did think he might, or she wouldn't have come over here. Sirius was obviously thinking along the same lines, as he said, "Though you must do, or you wouldn't have come out here."
"No, I, well, I wasn't sure, I needed to check. I'd never forgiven have myself if something had happened to you, If I hadn't come here-"
"No, the point is, there's some part of you that thinks I'd kill meself." Sirius said, pushing her back into her chair.
~Sirius POV~
Sirius pushed Hermione roughly back into her chair.
/She actually thinks that I would do that? She thinks that I would leave Harry? How can she thi-/
Hermione stood up, angry. The tears that were in her eyes had gone.
"No. That is not true. The only thing that made me come is that I care about you, and I didn't understand why I would dream about you killing yourself. I didn't understand what would make me dream something like that, so I thought that I was seeing what was going to happen. I didn't believe it, but I had to check. I had to make sure nothing had happened to you." Hermione said, her voice rising in anger.
/She cares about me?/
/Yep, well, this should make things easier-/
/Shut up you pervert-/
"Well maybe I'll not bother next time, maybe I'll just risk letting you die, leaving Harry with no-"
"I would never leave Harry on his own." Sirius growled, standing up to, which made her look up at him.
Hermione didn't say anything. She knew he wouldn't leave Harry, but it just slipped out.
/How dare she? How dare she say something like that? I would never leave Harry-/
Hermione looked up into Sirius' eyes, which were flashing in anger, which caused the anger to bubble violently in her stomach.
"Yeah well it's not my fault that your cooped up here is it? It's not my fault you can't do anything for the Order, is it? Maybe, if you didn't let yourself get so miserable or depressed, you'd have more company, maybe if you didn't drink so much-"
"Fine. Maybe we should lock you up here with Kreacher, and I'll go back to Hogwarts. Lets see how you feel, not being able to speak to James- " Sirius stopped immediately after he realised what he had said. Guilt flooded his eyes and he looked down.
/Shit/
/Shit indeed/
Hermione stood there, shocked. James? James?
"I knew it, you think of Harry as James, and that's the problem. He's not James, and he never will be. Harry may look like him, and he may sometimes remind you of him, but James is dead. And Harry can't replace him. And you've got to realise that." Hermione stated, her hands coming to rest on her hips.
"I know James is dead. I know Harry can't ever replace him, no one can ever replace James." Sirius said, almost shouting to begin with, but had quietened almost to a whisper by the end.
Hermione looked down at her feet. She shouldn't have said that.
Sirius moved away, walking over to the door leading into the pantry. Hermione sat down, but got straight back up again when she saw Sirius come out of the pantry carrying several cans of cider.
"What are you doing?" Hermione asked, seemingly affronted by the alcohol.
"Getting pissed," Sirius said simply, sitting down in a seat at the opposite side of the table and opening a can with a pop.
"You can't drink in the middle of a.a." Hermione said, trailing off, trying to decide what exactly they were in the middle of.
"An argument? No offence but I'd rather drink." Said Sirius, taking a swig from his cider, looking up briefly at Hermione, his eyes dark and unreadable.
"Well," Hermione cast around for something to say, and then she remembered the whiskey on his breath, "Don't you think you've had enough to drink?"
"No," said Sirius, carrying on drinking.
"Want a can?" Sirius asked, shoving a can towards her.
"Oh no, your not getting me drunk so you can." Hermione stopped as Sirius chair scraped the ground as he got up. He walked towards her, coming around the table. He was a couple of steps a way from her when he said,
"So I can do what Hermione?"
/Fuck you?/