Disclaimer: Lalalala. JK owns. Really. That's all. She owns.
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" -Blanche Dubois, A Streetcar Named Desire
Interlude the Second
Him
December 1995
On the same night of their stay, the night in which Harry had received unsuccessful dancing lessons from Hermione, the three young friends go to bed early. They are tired. Sirius is tired too, but for a different reason. He's tired of different things.
He sits alone at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in front of him. He used to detest tea. It alwaysseemed so proper, so neat, so … intensely reminiscent of his mother. And of Bellatrix. And, somewhat, of someone else entirely.
"Sirius, honestly – it'll make you feel better." She slides the saucer towards him with a white hand.
"I don't like tea." A pause. "I thought you were angry at me."
"I am," she quietly muses, "I'm very angry at you, but I don't feel like I can yell at you unless you have enough energy to yell back."
He pushes the saucer away. "I'm not really thirsty."
She smiles silently at him, though her eyes are directed at the table. "And I'm not really angry." And she watches him drink his tea.
Sirius frowns to himself. He takes another sip of his tea, then looks down at the wrinkled picture in his other hand. It's old, yellowed at the corners – it's obvious that this picture has been viewed many times, crumpled once or twice, ripped down the middle at one point. A faint brown line still remains where he had performed the reattachment charm.
The stairs suddenly creak. Someone is coming down to the kitchen. The footsteps are light and the person's feet are seemingly bare, though Sirius can't recognize to whom they belong.
When he hears the steps pause in the doorway, followed by a short half-gasp of surprise, he turns around to greet his guest.
It is a cliché moment in time for him, the perfect cliché moment, because it is Hermione. Any other person he would have loved to see standing there, to talk to, to have a cup of tea with, but instead, it is Hermione. She is dressed in her nightclothes and a robe is wrapped tightly around her, and her feet are, as he had suspected, bare. She appears to be wide awake, and she looks very startled to see Sirius sitting there.
Sirius, meanwhile, gestures to her with his mug. "Tea?" He doesn't really want her to have tea.
She shakes her head. "No, thank you."
"Can't sleep?" He doesn't really want to make conversation.
She shakes her head again. "Not really."
"Have a seat." He doesn't really want her company.
She hesitantly takes the seat across from him. She shivers once, crosses her arms to get warm, and looks around the kitchen, probably feeling a bit awkward.
Sirius doesn't say anything. He stirs his tea, looks at Hermione, looks at the stove, shivers once, looks at Hermione again, and whispers, "Well … I should probably get some rest. You too – you look tired."
She looks as though she isn't going to respond, so he rises from his seat. When he's in the doorway, he hears a faint, "Sirius?"
He sighs. He turns.
She's looking at him. "Can I ask you something?"
He frowns. "Of course you can." He'd prefer that she didn't.
"This is slightly awkward, I know," she begins, and he can see that she's wringing her hands, "but I was simply wondering if you … well … if you ever felt … if you ever felt confused about your … you know … feelings … for someone?"
He raises an eyebrow, and his frown deepens. This is unexpected. He suddenly notices how distressed she looks. Her hair is messy. Her eyes are shadowed by dark circles. Her cheeks look gaunt in the dim lighting, and her eyes are shining with a pitiful desperation. He shifts uncomfortably in the doorway."You mean … have I ever wondered if I'm in love with someone?"
She blushes furiously, and her eyes immediately revert to the table, as if looking at him will make the situation all that more terrifying. "That's putting it very bluntly."
"Love is blunt, my dear," he says matter-of-factly. She's suddenly reminding him of someone else."Blunt, terrifying, painful, and awful."
She looks up, eyes wide. "But it's good, too."
"Do you think so?"
"It has to be."
"Because your books say so?"
"Because … because …" She is struggling for the right words – "Because I think that … that it simply has to be."
He has, by this time, slowly approached the table and taken his seat once again. "But why do you think so?"
She sighs. "We need something good to depend on. Love has always been … it's always, always, been … well ... good."
He leans back in his chair. "So, if love is good, and you know this, and you depend on it – what else is there to consider?"
"What do you mean?"
"Love is annoying, Hermione, because it just happens. One minute you're fine, happy, un-stressed, and the next minute you're running around like a hippogriff with it's head cut off. That is really annoying. But it's true, because it just happens to you, and if you think that there's even the slightest chance that you feel it for someone, then … well, then, you probably do."
"I know," she moans, appearing to be very upset, "I've been telling myself that over and over again, but … it's so confusing. I don't know about him."
He smiles. "You're a smart girl, Hermione. You'll figure it out."
She smiles back, and now she really does look tired. "Thanks, Sirius."
He nods. He regards her for a moment with a curious frown, then he smiles again, then begins to rise from his seat.
"Wait … Sirius?"
He arches an eyebrow.
"Who is that girl in the picture? The girl in the green dress?"
Sirius shivers. He glances down at the picture in his hand. "A girl I used to know. I found this old thing in my pocket yesterday."
"Oh." She looks slightly disappointed.
"What?"
"Nothing," she shrugs. "I just thought that you might have been in love with her."
"And why would you think that?"
She smiles sadly. "Because right now, you look the way that I feel."
And his smile has no hint of sadness whatsoever. "She isn't the girl that I'll love forever."
A pause. Hermione doesn't move. Sirius shivers.
"She's the one that I'll hate for the rest of my life."