I Want the Fire Back
Summary: Hermione is obsolete – the War is over, Harry and Ron are busy, and she the mere Charms teacher at Hogwarts. When a presumably dead man comes back better than ever, she suddenly means everything... to him. SiHr
Rating: R for language, themes, sex, and whatever else may come out of my twisted little mind.
Disclaimer: It's not me who owns these characters or any plots associated with the Harry Potter books.
To Fey the Rabid Clown Killer: Don't worry, you didn't offend me! Lol, not really anyways. I really do appreciate the review, and for that I'm going to be more conscious of my story and certain things in it, so I do thank you. :) And in a way, aren't most of us fan fiction authors bumbling?
Chapter 17: The Fortune Cookie
Hermione beamed at her family as they surveyed her and Sirius with a disapproving eye.
The drop dead gorgeous man in the leather coat took his woman's arm and she led him inside as her family parted like she was Moses and they were the sea.
"Hello, Hermione," Ann Granger grinned at her only child as she came in the front door. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Sirius Black, mum," Hermione smiled as she heard whispers flood the room, her family talking about how odd a name that was.
"Oh, here, I'll talk your coats," Robert Granger smiled politely at his daughter's 'friend', and gingerly took Sirius' leather coat and Hermione's own wool one before traipsing off to the bedroom to toss them on the bed.
Sirius felt wonderfully out of place in his dark blue jeans and tight white t-shirt, but was reassured when he noticed that Hermione was equally casual in her light blue sweater and jeans.
Wrapping an arm possessively around her mate's waist, she steered him through the people and into the living room. To his delight, there were even more fancied up people there.
A girl a few years older than Hermione approached, wearing a tight green cocktail dress, her thin heels clicking distinctly on the wooden floor.
"Ah, Herm! How have you been, dear girl?" the girl flicked a wisp of blond hair out of her hazel eyes, speaking to Hermione but looking at Sirius through fake lashes.
"Hello, Ida. Sirius, this is my cousin," Hermione pointed them out to one another with a slight glare at her disgusting cousin.
Ida held out her hand as one would do to a man expecting a kiss on the knuckles, but Sirius merely nodded at her and moved closer to Hermione. The girl had the courtesy to seem a little miffed, and she quickly puller her hand back down to her side.
"Oh wait until I tell Jilly, she'll be thrilled that you brought a date, Herm," Ida continued, using the horrid nickname she had created for her younger cousin as her eyes screened the party. "Oh, I think I see her now – I'll be right back! And don't you go anywhere," she added with a sly look at Sirius, who withheld a vomiting noise.
"She is absolutely vile," Sirius muttered when Ida had dashed off to find Jilly.
"I'm aware," Hermione muttered in a dark voice, to which Sirius bent down and kissed her cheek.
"S'alright, love. So, is there anyone else you want me to meet?" he asked, his eyes scanning the room in a bored fashion.
"Actually, I think it would be nice for you to meet my Aunt Gineve," Hermione bit her lip as she scanned the room on her tiptoes. After finding her aunt, she tugged on Sirius' arm, and he followed her obediently to the couch.
Plopping down with an over-enthusiastic smile, Hermione gained her aunt's attention and introduced Sirius.
With a tight smile that didn't meet her eyes, Gineve studied Sirius, taking obvious disdain on his choice of clothing and hair.
"And what do you do?" she asked, with emphasis on the 'you', implying she obviously disapproved of Hermione's teaching position at a boarding school.
"I'm a substitute at the school Hermione teaches at," Sirius offered the older woman a flirtatious smile, knowing it would disturb her.
"Ah… so you work with the delinquents, also?" the woman sneered unpleasantly, and Sirius held back a growl of displeasure. This woman was referring to Hogwarts as the Dursleys had when Harry had lived with them.
"Oh, no, actually – the kids there aren't delinquents – they're very talented and intelligent children. I myself was schooled there," Sirius grinned proudly as he picked up a glass of wine from a nearby tray set up on a coffee table. He knew full well that this pompous woman would now believe that Sirius had been a delinquent also.
"Yes, just like our… Hermione here," Gineve smiled stiffly, attempting to fake pride at her niece's schooling. "Did you two graduate together?"
"Actually," Sirius began with a small chuckle and Hermione hid a laugh behind her palm, knowing what he would say next, "I graduated from there a good twenty years prior to 'Mione."
The woman snorted derisively in response and raised an eyebrow. "How old are you, then?"
"I figured you would be able to figure that simple riddle out for yourself. If your niece is twenty, and I graduated twenty years before her… well I'm no mathematician, but I'd say that would make me forty years old."
The woman glared disdainfully at Sirius, her lips pursed in anger. Deciding that was his cue to move on to other prey, Sirius grabbed Hermione's hand and led her away from the fuming wench.
A few minutes later, as the two lovers were seated with a more pleasant group of people, an elderly woman passed by them, and shooting a dark look towards Hermione, spoke in what she thought was a hushed tone, "Kids now… it's all about lust… they have no conception of love."
Speaking loudly, Sirius smiled, "Did I ever tell you guys that Hermione saved my life?" A murmur of approval and shock chorused around the occupants of the room that heard that statement, and those who didn't hear were soon told by one who did.
Nodding, Sirius continued. "Yeah… she saved me. I was in… hell, of a sort. Physically and emotionally – I had gotten myself lost in a sea of despair, and this gorgeous woman saved me… She didn't even mean to, either. Her beauty and her heart and her intelligence, and most of all – her love - saved me, and she didn't even have to try."
Sirius, although he had started his rant to annoy the old woman and put her in her place, had finished staring at the golden brown eyes of his savior, emotion showing evidently in his gaze.
Smiling, she let her hand grip his tightly for a moment, whispering, "I love you."
The crowd around them, although not partial to Sirius, still looked impressed with the show of sincerity the two displayed for one another.
This act was soon forgotten, though, as the Granger family's older generation became more active in the night's discussions. After the fourth woman Sirius met gave him a dirty look and scoffed at his tales of exuberant pranking during his youth, he decided that it was time to wreak a little vengeful havoc.
Telling Hermione he was going to the restroom, he received the directions to the first floor bathroom and trotted off in search of relief.
Surprisingly enough, it was not Sirius Black that returned from the lavatory, but a certain shaggy dark animal with a smirking jowl.
Hermione noticed at once that there was some sort of disruption near the area she had last let her boyfriend from her sight and immediately stood to find out what was happening.
Suddenly the large black dog bounded away from the group of people that had surrounded him, tongue hanging out and slobbering on anything in a two-foot radius of him. Gasping in surprise, Hermione managed to squeal, "Snuffles!"
A vast amount of unwanted attention was granted to the young woman, who, in mid-step, had paused and now remained with one foot much farther in front of the other, her mouth slightly open. Although most people present may have missed the way the corners of her mouth twitched upwards in the beginnings of a giggle.
At her mother's mild glare, the teacher of Charms quickly rambled out an explanation.
"Um… I meant, well, he… looks like my dog… Snuffles…"
"You have a dog?" her father asked with a raised eyebrow, knowing how much Hermione had protested against keeping pets locked in a home for human's pleasure.
Unable to hide a smile, she responded quietly, thinking of her precious Animagus, "In a way… Yes, I suppose I do."
"Well, that still doesn't explain how this look-alike mutt got into the house," Gineve snorted as if the whole situation were below her.
The 'look-alike mutt' growled at this, and almost looking as if he winked at the intelligent brunette to the left of him, he dashed off towards the kitchen.
People squawked from fright and dashed out of the dangerous path of the obviously rabid beast.
Gineve screamed wretchedly as Sirius managed to pull a nearby tablecloth off, spilling all sorts of pudding and other deserts on her dress.
Snuffles continued his belligerent rampage, trying his best to only startle people and not mess up the house too horribly for Hermione's parents.
He was soon shooed out the door by a very angry man who Hermione had earlier mentioned as her Uncle Scott. He was 37 years old, very good looking, and happened to have an idiosyncrasy for dating girls half his age.
Biting her lip to keep from laughing at her aunt, Hermione retreated back to the safety of her couch, hoping Sirius would manage to enter back into the home without looking too peculiar.
Her hopes were reassured when Sirius came back with an excuse of, "After I went to the bathroom, I decided to have me a nice long smoke." Despite the fact that this made Hermione's family dislike him even more (oh what a shame), it was a fairly solid excuse for the reason that he would have gone outside to inhale the cancer-stick. No one felt it their duty to mention the possessed dog that had disturbed them so horribly.
Being the mature young man that he was, Black once again grew bored with the people at the function and began trying to count how many guests seemed to have rather large objects shoved up their arses. Surprisingly, very few remained free of being tallied.
"Ginny says that I bloody well can't get married until after the baby's born," Hermione spoke in a hushed tone, trying to start a conversation with her uninterested beau.
A response she had not expected occurred at this tidbit of information.
Sirius yelped and fell from his seat, falling into an uncharacteristically traumatized state.
"What baby?!" he screeched, his voice unusually high.
Confused at first, Hermione reviewed her wording of the previous sentenced and blushed at the strange looks people were giving them. Then it hit her, and she scowled. "Her baby, Sirius."
"Oh," he picked himself up from the polished wooden floor and seated himself on the black leather couch with as much grace and reverence as he could muster. "Well give an old man a heart attack, will you?" he whispered, using his own turn to scowl.
Before Hermione could respond, Sirius noticed how irritated the guests were at the young couple's sudden outburst. "S'alright folks – no, she didn't throw me off the couch – I just thought she may be pregnant, is all." He made a sigh of relief and grinned antagonistically at the crowd as their annoyance grew rapidly.
Great, now they think I'm some great big slut, Hermione thought, half of her happy for their annoyance, half slightly deterred by the fact that she had also strived so vivaciously to please people and was now throwing all of that out the window. Well, at least when it came to the particularly vulgar and malevolent part of her family, it was being thrown out the window. And oh what a beautiful, large window it was.
Hermione lightly punched Sirius in the arm, an act she had picked up on performing from years spent around Ron and Harry. He mocked hurt and wrapped his arm around her possessively, breathing in quietly to get a whiff of her hair.
"Speaking of mothers," Sirius referred lightly to the expecting young Ginny, "Whatever happened to mine? You know, the portrait at Grimmauld Place." She noticed an imperceptible shudder pass through his body as he mentioned his childhood home, although he had already revisited again recently. It must have been horrible. Damn his family… Well, except for the part where their actions somehow resulted in their son managing to become a brave, wonderful man despite his upbringing.
Blushing suddenly, she began to answer his query. "Well… after you… died, or whatever, we were at Grimmauld Place for Order work, and she was screaming about how greatly you deserved to die at the much more worthy hand of your cousin, Bellatrix. I was holding my wand, and without meaning to… well, I didn't even do anything…" Sirius, bursting of curiosity, looked at her eagerly at her weighty pause.
"And she sort of burst into flames…" she mumbled.
Loud, barking laughter met her ears, and Hermione looked up shyly, her cheeks tainted red. "You toasted her? Must have been a powerful spell, it's not as if I've never tried that before!" Black eyes twinkled in mirth as he quieted his voice again – the Grangers were giving them an even greater amount of stares.
"That's the thing, though – it wasn't even a spell – it was just my emotions getting the best of me… But the worst part of it all was when the whole damn house nearly burnt to the ground – Remus and Harry had to help me put out the fire," she giggled.
Sirius' face darkened. "You should have let it burn to the ground."
Realizing he had replaced his defensive walls up and donned an impassive expression, Hermione sighed. "We wouldn't let all of your things burn up…"
He snorted. "What things could I possibly have had in that house of any worth?"
"You mean, besides your multitude of pictures of Lily and James that were already returned to your possession?"
"Oh… well, yes… there's that. Anything else, Miss Know-it-all?" his usual smirk returned, causing his lover's mood to lighten greatly.
Hermione tilted her head to the side (one of Sirius' favorite actions of hers), thinking for a moment. She abruptly recalled a certain object that she had shown no one except Harry. "Oh, I do recollect a certain diary from the age of… hmmm, sixteen, perhaps?"
Sirius' face lost all color. "No… I… never kept a diary…"
"Oh really?" her voice dripped like venomous honey as she appeared to contemplate her memories of it. "So you never slept with two girls in one night, getting only an hour of sleep, and still managed to receive full marks on your transfiguration exam the next morning?"
Sirius sniffed sardonically. "That's common knowledge – tell me something that only a diary would have."
Glaring at him slightly, she slipped back into her thoughts, trying to grasp a piece of juicy blackmail. "Ah! How about, Lucius Malfoy hit on you a series of three different times, and once succeeded in landing you under some charmed mistletoe?"
Sirius' face, recovering from draining all color, now flushed a vibrant red. "You tell no one."
She smirked. "Harry already knows."
"Ah, fuck."
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A/N: SO SORRY that it took me so long to update – I had a wake to attend, a showing, and a funeral, and I could never seem to find the time to write enough at once. I apologize. But I do thank you all so much for the reviews! Please review!
Love is the only thing about which it is impossible to say anything absurd.
- Fortune Cookie