Perfect Black
KS Black
DISCLAIMER: ALMOST ALL RECOGNISABLE CHARACTERS ARE THE SOLE INTELLECTUAL AND FISCAL PROPERTY OF JK ROWLING OR SUSSANA KEARSLY.
THE PLOT OF PERFECT BLACK IS THE SOLE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF THE AUTHOR KS BLACK, AND IS NOT USED TO MAKE A PROFIT, OR ANY SORT OF FINANCIAL CHANGE.
Chapter 1
Hermione awoke sometime in the middle of the night, and as usual for the past few weeks, she'd found an arm slung possessively over her stomach to pull her tighter to the breasts at her back and her own arms resting casually on a scarred flat stomach. Tonight was a little different, though-her legs were entwined with his deliciously muscled ones, and a hand gently caressed her hair.
There was only one problem. Neither of her bedfellows were Harry or Ron. They were Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin-both people she got on well with. At least, well enough to dissipate the majority of awkwardness of the present sleeping arrangement, especially when they awoke to find themselves quite intimately curled around one another.
You see, two weeks after the funeral of Albus Dumbledore, the now-leader of the Phoenix Minerva McGonnagall had decided-with much agreement from all-that the boy who seemed destined to play a major role in the war would get some advanced training in survival skills. So, too, would the boy she appointed as his personal bodyguard, Ronald Weasley. Unfortunately for the woman, it left her in something of a predicament. She would have loved to send Hermione with Harry and Ron; but that meant leaving the girl as sole woman among four men-five if you counted Hagrid, three if you didn't count the half-giant and Alastor Moody. She and the only other adult male, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had talked long into the night, and it was he who convinced her that the young girl would do better with Tonks and Remus.
So, two months, one week, three days, twelve hours and twenty minutes later, you find Hermione Granger, easing herself out of the nest the humans made to glare petulantly at the glowing red display. She'd gotten used to sleeping between them, or with Tonks alone if Remus was under his monthly cycle. So why was she so bloody awake now, and what had woken her up?
She sighed as she crawled backwards; carefully avoiding the cat at the foot of the bed-not too hard since the more feline side of his half-kneezle nature made him wary of the werewolf. He followed her, though, as her stocking feet-the wood floors were cold, even in summer-softly tread to the kitchen. It was there that she was reminded why she'd woken up.
They'd been coming home from a shopping trip-posing as a small, working-class, poor family was always entertaining, and they always looked the part; especially if Hermione stole a pair of faded jeans from Remus-when she spotted a shadow that followed them. Not wanting to alarm her companions and guardians, she'd turned around only to catch sight of a corner of a black, heavy, canvas long coat disappear into an alley. And she wasn't even sure she saw that. But crossing the busy east London street, she'd spotted an all too familiar face reflected in the window of a passing vehicle.
Severus Snape was following them, and she'd not have known if she hadn't been so damned jumpy. But why had she feigned illness and cramps and created a need to dissaparate home from a discreet location to lie down, instead of telling her friends right off what she'd seen?
The answer revealed itself just as smooth and swift as the reminder to why she'd woken up. Crookshanks mewled softly, butting against her shins as she stared at the fridge, and began to purr in contentment when he was scooped up. There was a part of her that still, against all odds, trusted the man; that told her he'd saved her life more times than she'd care to count, that he'd actually given her a high enough score to continue in what would normally have been his class. If he truly was on Voldemort's side, he'd have killed them sooner surely. But, whispered that cold, equally logical, sinister side of herself, he'd not have gotten the chance to ultimately prove his loyalty to Voldemort by gaining Dumbledore's complete trust.
She poured herself a glass of milk as she looked through the door to Remus's sleeping form. And facing down a werewolf that had tried to kill him on a previous occasion, without even trying to kill the poor creature? Where does that fit in, Hermione Granger?
She attributed the whole thing to her own monthly cycle, just coming off the last of the worse days. She still wasn't used to it, after almost a year of it. She settled with a huff on a chair in the room that served them as kitchen, living, and dining, thinking on how her oh so glorious arrival of true womanhood had knocked on her biological door on the day of her seventeenth birthday-her entrance to the world of wizard adulthood. And she had one more month to go before she could get a hysterectomy without even worrying about parental consent. Her eyes moved from the door to the bedroom, across a chair next to a phone and wall calendar, and to a window.
And those amythesteyeswidened when she took in the ghostly white from of a snowy owl, just now perching on the ledge.
My Notes
Alright, so this is chapter one, kind of a two-part longer chapter. The first few paragraphs had been haunting me for a few weeks before I started, after I finished HBP. I have no clue why. I may get rid of the reference to her menstrual cycle because when I did start writing, it had been part of the original plot. But, plots change and grow and develop even as you're writing, and I'm not sure if where I ultimately want this to go will need that particular plotpoint.
Anyway, after reading this, go review. And then check out the forum-that, I hope, will be up just a few minutes after I post this.
KS