Sirius went upstairs after he had interrupted Harry's conversation with his friend Hermione. He grinned silently to himself about the idea of lovepotions somewhere with so little space, so much time and so many teenagers. His thoughts kept travelling over that subject for a while. He sat down on his bed (he had moved into the master bedroom again after he had returned, something that had felt only natural to everybody) and suddenly he realised that no one had ever told him about his own lovelife.
He hadn't failed to notice that he had a certain effect on the women around. Even Mrs. Weasley, although constantly telling him off for practically everything he did (she had the talent to make everyone around feel like they were one of her children – and guilty about something) couldn't avoid him when he looked smiled at her.
There was, of course, one exception: Hermione Granger, always kind and friendly, but never out of her unique mind's control.
His thoughts lingered on the brown haired girl for a moment. He could understand why Harry liked her so much and confided into her with anything he dealt with. Hermione was a great, loyal friend with strong principles and a good sense of humour. And she was smart, oh yes. She sometimes still puzzled him with her knowledge and her ability to follow the rules of cool logic, although Harry and Ron had lost no time to tell him that she could think of a spell for everything and knew the heaviest books, including one called Hogwarts, A History, by heart. Yet, he had never seen her the way she had been in the kitchen a few minutes ago.
She had seemed very agitated about something and he had the impression that it weren't the twins silly jokes that had made her eyes flash and her hair fly like that. Sirius had her image in his mind and he felt sure that there was a lot more beneath her self-controlled surface than just a clever mind. He even caught himself thinking that the guy who managed to break that surface one day would be very lucky. Realising what he had just thought, he shook his head like a dog wanting to shake water out of it's fur and muttered to himself: "Don't be silly, it't not your business and you should learn to get along with your own life before you wonder about someone else's."
Back to his own life it was. He seemed to have had many friends and people who liked him. But love? There were no tales about the steady girlfriend he had been happy with in his last years in school. No pictures of a marriage, let alone kids. Since his schooldays, he seemed to have spent – was it really that long? – fifteen years alone.
"Well you were, let's say, quite popular at school."
"Yes I know that I had loads of friends, but I asked you about a girl or woman!"
Remus sighed: "Well, to be honest you had loads of girls too in school. Hard to keep track, mate." Sirius let out a soft "Oh" and stared into his breakfast bowl. He was tired, having spent the best part of the last night wondering about his unknown lovelife.
"OK, I that means I was a bit… restless in my schooldays.." This caused Remus to snort into his cornflakes, muttering something about "unbelievable understatement" Sirius chose to ignore this: "… but afterwards, in the last fifteen years, there must have been someone, I mean everyone needs to settle down once, do they?"
"Er, well Sirius, that is hard to.." – "Old habits die hard, Sirius, I guess." Tonks, who had listened to their conversation, said in a would-be-casual voice, shooting Remus a meaningful look. Sirius was confused about this statement, so he joined into Tonk's and Remus' laughter, but inside he grew more and more disappointed. So he had been alone.
Suddenly his thoughts were distacted by a loud shriek and a crash: "This is impossible! I can't carry on like this, no, we have to throw all this rubbish out and clean this place from top to bottom again!" Mrs. Weasley had just made very violent contact with a bunch of pixies that had chosen an old storage for a home.
So they cleaned. "They" meant Harry, Ron, Hermione, Mrs. Weasley and Sirius, because the other Order members had to go to work during the day. At first it was quite dull, but as soon as Hermione had repaired and bewitched an old grammophone, they were driven by very weird but still joyful tunes, that magically reached every corner of the house. Mrs. Weasley had ordered the trio up into the seond floor, were an uninhabited room that was full of drapery, pillows and oldfashioned wizarding clothes (the room raised the suspicion that Kreacher had decided to install a monument to his old masters' fashion sense in there.)
Harry and Ron naturally found all of this too tempting to tidy up, but started a halloween fitting, that soon became a violent pillow fight. Hermione ineffectively tried to stay out of the mayhem for a while just to join in very soon, be it only for defensive reasons, or to get back at Ron for the masses of feathers that hung in her long curls now. "You won't get away with that Ronald!" Hermione aimed as carefully as Ron ducked quickly and the pillow made it's way towards the door, just to land on the entering Sirius' head with a muffeld "Thud!"
Shocked, Hermione stared at the place were Sirius' head was supposed to be, only to find herself looking at a cloud of feathers that took some time to clear up. Ron and Harry roared with laughter when Sirius surfaced again, looking around for the culprit. His eyes came to rest on a flushed Hermione who faintly tried to point at Ron at first but then decided on fleeing instead.
"No, Sirius please! Oh no, you won't dare…" But his grin and the giant fluffy pillow in his hand spoke a different language. She managed to run towards him for the door, sprinted along the corridor, just to find herself cornered. She turned around quickly, about to storm back, and found herself face to face with Sirius, who forced her to back off into the wall.
"So, got you!"
"Please, Sirius, it was an accident!"
"No lame apologies here, you owe me something and I won't let you get away easily."He threateningly raised his pillow-hand.
"OK, do what you want with me, but pleeease have mercy!" Hermione mockingly begged him and looked up at him with her best innocent glance. But…
He was so close. He couldn't take his eyes from her face. Her deep chocolate eyes looked up at him, her lips were slightly parted, he could smell the sweet, silky scent coming from her, could see that perfect, soft skin.For a moment, she held her breath. She could see the tiny silver spots in his grey eyes, could feel his breath that still went faster than usually from chasing her down the corridor. Then, he lifted his hand and gently brushed a feathery curl from her forehead. The tender brush of his hand made her shiver… and come to her senses.
The spell was broken and he backed of, letting her pass him quickly, her head bent. Sirus heard Hermione mutter something about "Kitchen" and "help Mrs. Weasley", then she was gone. He turned around and leaned against the cool wall, his senses still swirling: "What the hell was that?"