Hi you all! Thank you so much for your wonderful reviews! I hope you enjoy this new chapter too! Cheers from Marie!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Amour Fou, Chapter 4 – Dance with me"Will you do it then?" Ginny watched her best friend hopefully.
"Of course, I will, Ginny! I am honoured!" Hermione laughed.
"Well that fits, as you will be my maid of honour!" The girls started to giggle. When they had calmed down again, Hermione asked: "So, who will be Harry's best man?"
"Oh, that was quite some struggle. Harry could not decide between Ron and Sirius. But Sirius solved it, he said we should both pick two people, so Harry can have Ron and him."
"And that's why I have Luna as a colleague?" Hermione groaned at the idea of planning a bachelorette party alongside Luna. "I bet you anything she will try to get Stubby Boardman as a singer." And the girls broke into giggles again.
"God, I am so excited, only five weeks to go and I will be Mrs. Harry Potter." Ginny threw herself back onto the carpet of her room. "Speaking of being a Mrs., Hermione I want to ask you something. Why didn't you change your name?"
Hermione blinked. "I am very fond of my name. Besides, it is a sign of independence and I like that."
"I should have thought so. This is typical for you. But don't you think it is romantic to take the other person's name?"
"Well, it may be in some cases. But Paul did not want to take my name either, so we decided to leave it like it was."
"Ah, there is something else about the maid of honour-business, Hermione." Ginny said when she noticed that the question of the names in marriage was finished for Hermione.
"Fire away."
"Well, Ron is teasing me non-stop about my wedding plans. He makes fun of anything I say, be it flowers, the music, the dress. Well you know him."
Hermione grinned: "All too well."
"So I figured I would take revenge by having him make his entrance into the church with Luna instead of you." Ginny grinned maliciously.
Hermione shook her head, laughing: "He won't like that, he thinks Luna is too strange to be allowed. And he will be nervous anyway. And if Luna comes up with something weird to wear or do…"
"…what she absolutely will, even Trelawney could predict that…" Ginny added.
"…then it will be total agony for Ron. A very fine revenge. When will you tell him?" Hermione surpressed giggles when she imagined Ron walking Luna down the aisle who was wearing her gigantic Griffindor-Lion hat, which she had bewitched to chant the wedding march in honour of the occasion.
"Not until last minute, so he won't chicken out of course." Ginny said.
"So it will be Luna with Ron and Sirius with me then. Fine I think that will work. I will have a job spying at the guys to make sure they won't throw a better party for Harry than we will for you." Hermione got up. "I have to leave, Ginny, I am meeting Paul in town before I get back to the office. We rarely see each other at the moment, because we both work non-stop."
"Say hello to him from me! See you!" Ginny said as Hermione apparated out of her room.
----
Sirius had some difficulty navigating through the crowd with five Butterbeers clutched between his hands. The club they had chosen for Harry's bachelor party was packed. The large, lounge-like niche their all-guy group had occupied gave them an excellent view over the dancefloor and to the entrance, causing Ron and the twins to make remarks about every female who entered the club. Paul, whom Harry had invited last minute chatted with Bill Weasley. Harry was already slightly drunk, but, Sirius thought, that was the whole purpose of the night. Sirius sank to the sofa next to Remus, who was watching the crowd.
"I wonder what the girls are doing." Remus said suddenly.
"You miss Tonks, don't you?" Sirius shook his head and laughed. "Well that Luna girl tried to spy on us planning the party when we were at the Burrow one night. She is sort of weird and didn't do her job very well, it was too obvious what she was up to. Hermione was a lot cleverer, I can tell you. But she did not find out we were coming here. She probably suspets us in some boring pub." Sirius grinned.
"Do you know where the girls are going?" Remus asked.
"No, Hermione was too smart to give us a hint or tell Luna, which I think was a brilliant move, because, believe me, I would certainly have got it out of her. No, I think they make some cosy movie-night or something."
"No, they aren't." Remus said curtly.
"You know where they are going? Ah, of course, Tonks blabbed." Sirius said.
"No, she didn't, actually she is currently standing next to the entrance, which leaves little doubt about where the girls are planning to go tonight." Remus pointed to the door.
Sirius gasped. A group of young women stood there, eyeing the crowd and searching for a place to sit. And sure enough, right in front flashed Tonks' spiky pink hair. Ginny was there and Luna and Fleur and Shelley and some other girls Sirius had never seen before. He wondered where Hermione, the organizer of the whole thing might be when she entered the club. Remus felt Sirius sit up slightly. Hermione was wearing a tight dark blue jeans that hugged her curves and brought out her long legs. With it she sported a smokey grey neckholder top made of shimmering satin. Her hair was falling loosely over her shoulders and framed her beautiful face. At that precise moment, Hermione's eyes met Sirius'. For a moment she just looked at him, then her face broke into a typical I've-known-it-all-along smile and she pointed the guys out to the girls.
"Look who it is!" she grinned at Sirius when they arrived at the guys' lounge. "Not that I didn't expect this. Could you makesome room for us, gentlemen?"
Sirius got up and offered the place next to him to Hermione. "Certainly, my lady. But tell me, where did you learn to spy like that?"
"Oh, there was no need to spy as I expected you to come here anyway. I mean, your usual pub would have been too plain a choice. I knew you must be going for something fancier and this is the only club Harry and Ron like because they play music both of them can live with. And it is not some teenager place, so Remus and you would not get too bored." Hermione knew immediately that she had hit the point when Sirius broke into laughter.
"Brilliant as I remember you. But why, if I might ask you, are you here then? Harry and Ginny are supposed to spent the night apart from each other's control."
"Because I figured it would be much more fun if we met at some point of the night. And look at them." She indicated Ginny, who was sitting on Harry's lap, kissing every bit of him she could reach. "She is so drunk by now and annoyed everyone with her 'I want my Harry!'. And Remus does not look unhappy too. And you, Bill and me will be safely reunited with our spouses." She added when Fleur wrapped herself around Bill again.
"The perfect solution. I can only surrender to you!" Sirius bowed his head. Then he conspiratively leaned in to her and whispered "By the way, you look stunning tonight." With that, he sat down. Hermione first seemed to be unsure what to do, then she gave him an equally conspirative smile and sat down too.
Just then, Paul came over and sat on Hermione's other side, greeting her with a small kiss on the cheek. They immediately engaged in conversation. Within another minute, Sirius had Shelley by his other side. She had reluctantly agreed to join the party after Ginny had begged and teased her for a week. Sirius kissed her and lay his usual arm around her.
About two rounds of drinks later, Ginny questioned Harry loudly about his bachelor party.
"Were there any strippers?" she asked.
Harry blinked. Then his face broke into a wide grin and he retorted, stuttering slightly: "Loads. A-and they all seemed ta know…" who all the strippers seemed to know was never revealed because Ginny broke into noisy complaints.
"This – this is s-so unfair. I didn't have any. W-well we considered Stubby Boardman but he wouldn't strip."
Hermione mouthed a mute "Oh no." and closed her eyes as Sirius raised an eyebrow. She had not intended their Stubby-Boardman jokes to become that public. But Ginny was not to be stopped.
"I would have liked to see S-Stubby strip, really, it would be veeeery worth it, wouldn't it, Hermione?"
Sirius slowly turned his head towards a temporarily speechless Hermione, looking interested. Hermione regained control quickly and could not resist to grin at Sirius while saying: "Definitely." She regretted it as soon as the words had left her lips and cursed herself for the last shot she had had. Sirius looked mockingly scandalized and started to say something when Paul asked: "Who is Stubby Boardman?" (Surprise, he does not read The Quibbler, Sirius thought).
Hermione blushed and turned her head from Sirius to her husband: "Never mind. Ladies, gents, what about a dance?"
As Ginny and Luna jumped to their partly very unsteady feet, dragging a reluctant Shelley with them to the dance floor, the guys tried to look very busy with their drink, conversations and so on. Sirius would have liked to join the girls but found it too risky to leave his drunken godson alone for too long. After joking and drinking with Harry for a while, Sirius sat back to clear his head a bit. He turned to watch the crowd on the dancefloor when he spotted the group of girls in the center of the dancefloor. Shelley was standing with Ginny, obviously glad to watch over her rather than dance herself. Sirius smiled. Shelley neither liked dancing nor loud music.
Then his eyes fell on Hermione, who was dancing next to Luna and Tonks. She moved gracefully, totally one with the rhythm. Long cinnamon locks were flying everywhere, Sirius could see sweat shining on golden skin. She had her arms raised, eyes closed, her curvy body moving smoothly with the music. Sirius felt desire erupt in his chest. He had never seen anything as erotic as her, dancing there in the pulsing mass of people, on her own and independent as ever but at the same time one with the heat of the crowd and the music. He longed to go there, to touch her, to grab her and run his hands over that back, those hips, to push that hair out of her face, to feel her body pressed against his… Sirius felt his breath go faster as a rush of images exploded in his head. He ran his tongue over his lips, his eyes narrowed like a dog's that has found its prey: Sirius continued to watch the beautiful woman dance, letting the mix of desire, fantasy and pleasure take control, sometimes giving in to the image of her eyes finding his and not caring about it being real or not.
Hermione inhaled the heat of the crowded dancefloor. She had learned how much she loved to dance like this in New York, when her new friends had taken her to clubs she would have never visited otherwise. Tonight, she had reached a point where she could dance for hours, allowing herself to be carried away by the music and the atmosphere completely. She enjoyed to have a place of her own where she could let go like this and that place was here, with her friends and the music. Hermione loved to dance to latin and soul music, everything with a good deal of rhythm and heat in it.
She felt hot, shook her hair out of her face and threw up her arms, dancing passionately. She didn't mind the crowd around her, she enjoyed being part of it, being carried by it, watching, being watched. And she was watched intensly tonight, she suddenly felt it. A pair of eyes she could not locate moved over her body, up and down, almost like hands that explored every inch of her skin. Hermione did not feel anything but these hands caressing her body, they followed her every move, stroking her shoulders, moving up her arms, to her raised hands, where they intertwined with her fingers.
The hands moved down again, down her sides, casually wandering along her breasts, they got hold of her waist and pulled her back towards an unmistakeably male body. Hermione drew in a sharp breath when she felt that body, strong and muscular, pressed against her back. He, who now held her close had his own powerful rhythm and Hermione quickly found it, moving, rocking with him. His one hand passionately touched her stomach, moving upward between her breasts, along the naked skin of her neck and made her lean her head back onto his shoulder.
She felt his breath on her skin, as he forcefully guided her towards a dark passage in the back of he club. Hermione wanted him to continue with whatever he had in mind and gasped when he pressed her to a wall. She felt the cool stone on her cheek, leaning her hands against it, to find salvation from the heat in her body, although she knew that the man whose rough lips now caressed her neck and shoulders from behind was the only one who could give her the salvation she wanted.
She heard herself moan as his hands found their way underneath her clothes. She had never felt such desire and breathed: "I want you" to the stranger who at that, grabbed her hand and whipped her around. Before Hermione could open her eyes to look at him, she felt his hot lips crush against hers, a slight stubble rubbed against her skin. She opened her mouth to allow him to slip his tongue in her mouth. She kissed him back with the same force and passion, causing him to moan huskily. Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist as he lifted her up, crashing her into the wall. Her hands found his face and she opened her eyes to look at him. His grey eyes were dark with passion but still unmistakeable.
And Hermione woke with a muffled scream, sitting up on her bed next to her husband who had not noticed his wife toss and turn in her sleep. She ran a hand through her hair that was damp with sweat and stared into the streaks of moonlight that fell across her bed, still panting. She hoped not to have woken Paul. She could not imagine to explain herself to him now, because she felt that as soon as she would open her mouth, the heat that still lingered in her body would cause her only to moan one word: "Sirius."