Sirius couldn't sleep this night and he didn't manage to come to rest the next one. He eagerly awaited his door to open and when it finally did, he was so relieved that he had to restrain himself not to rush forward and hug the girl that was entering his room. She was wearing the same nightthings as the past night just with a big, wooly, white jacket thrown over it. Her hair was a bit tangled, even wilder than usually, from having to wait in bed.
"I'm sorry, I had to make sure that Ginny really was asleep. How do you feel?" Hermione looked at him searchingly, as though she was trying to read his mind.
"Don't worry, I'm… no, I'm not fine, I'm excited. And a bit scared."
Of course he was. Sirius had no clue what was coming, but he was bound to expect something dreadful, given that everybody had tried to hide it from him. Hermione poundered her words, hoping he would understand. "When I start telling you what I know now, I sure want to fill you up with the facts, but I mainly want you to understand."
"Understand what?"
"Yourself." She said simply. "And how all of that could happen to you. And how you stayed who you are. Were. And will be again, I'm sure."
Sirius was surprised. "So you think, I can be the person who I was? But, I thought all my memories were lost."
"As far as I know - and that's from the best books covering that issue– it's not that simple. You have a really impressive library by the way, I was very pleased" Thrilled out of your wits would get the point far better, judging from the look on your face, Sirius thought, smiling to himself.
"Although, I think some of the books seem to have taken in the atmosphere of the house a bit to much." Hermione continued. "One of them started to shriek 'Thou shalt not touch those noble pages, you filthy mudblood!' as soon as I tried to open it." She said that like she was talking about a very courious scientific matter.
Sirius was embarassed. "Sorry, I didn't know, that must have been terrible for you. How could that happen, nobody could have possibly wanted a book to insult a reader like that, could they?."
Hermione looked at him, eyebrows sharply raised. Sirius Black was naïve. This definitely had to stop. "Oh no, it was OK, I hadn't expected much of 'A Thousand Ways of Torture and the Joy of It' anyway." Sirius couldn't help but grin.
"But what I was about to say, memories are a complicated matter, they aren't easily separated from their owner, as we can see from your dreams. They will try and come back, no matter how. And this is why we have to be very careful. I think I somehow got an idea about that memory-business. I feel, if I give you just the information, without giving you time and help to adjust yourself to it, your mind will be kind of conquered by your old memories, without being counterbalanced by understanding. You will, like, invite your memories to come back, and they will, uncontrolled, once we've started it. So we have to work on you understanding and accepting all those things, because otherwise you probably won't be able to deal with them like you used to. So, I decided the best way to do it is to give you the information I have bit by bit and not all at once. But at first, there is something I have to ask you."
"Go ahead, Hermione." How good it felt to speak her name. It made Sirius realise she was actually here, in his room, sitting opposite him on his bed.
"As I have only met you three years ago, I don't know everything about you. There are periods missing, especially from the earlier days. So I wanted to ask if you would consider to request for help from someone who knew you then."
"Who do you mean?" Sirius wondered if the person's identity would make any difference, as he felt he wanted this between him and Hermione.
"Remus."
"No way. I like him and I feel that there is a special bond between us, but I don't want him in here."
There was a moment of silence where they just looked at each other. Hermione felt a jolt in her stomach, but she didn't break the connection. She understood what he meant.
She felt comfortable here alone with Sirius. It was a room for their own, where they could shut out the rest of the world and listen to nothing but each other. She didn't have to worry about Harry in here and what he would say about her telling Sirius what he, Harry wanted to keep from him. In here there were no questions about her thougts and attitudes, even her own doubts about what she was about to do were vanishing.
"OK, I think I will start with what I know about your youth. You grew up in this house, this is what you know already." Sirius nodded.
"But there are things about your parents and family that nobody told you about so far." Hermione continued. "You know about the whole pure-blood-stuff, do you? Well your parents were especially proud of being one of the oldest and purest pure-blood-families in the country." And she told him the story he had told Harry, Ron and her when they had first visited this house in the previous summer. She talked about his parents and brother, about how they thought Voldemort was right and that pure-bloods should be in charge. Sirius listened eagerly, his expression quite unreadable. At a few points, he swallowed hard, but he never interrupted her. Hermione decided to stop right before the part of Regulus Black's fate.
"Do you have any questions?"
Sirius breathed in very deeply. Then he said: "So, I didn't have a very joyful childhood. And I'm from one of the darkest families you can possibly imagine."
Hermione looked at him, unsure where this was going. "Yes, that's it. In a nutshell."
And shook his head in disbelief "But, how come, I'm here then? I mean with that background I would rather expect me to be surrounded by a bunch of Death-Eaters. I mean, nobody here could possibly have wanted a person like.. like THAT in here?" He shook his head again. Hermione tried to interrupt, but he came across her.
"Is there anybody left? I mean, from my family? Where is my brother?"
"I'm afraid, Sirius, but he was… murdered. By Voldemort himself."
His eyes became hollow, he stared into the fire. Hermione could see the reflection of the flames in his eyes and she felt a sudden rush to take him into her arms, to tell him that everything as going to OK.
After several moments he finally looked at her.
"This means that I am the last Black?"
"Yes. The house and everything in it is yours, there are no direct relatives left. Except some cousins, like Tonks, Molly Weasley and of course Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy."
At the sound of the last two names, Sirius snorted in a very Sirius-like way "Oh, but I don't exactly care about being related to that part of the family."
Hermione couldn't help but grin a bit. "Well this is just the attitude you've had before. You chose, see. You left all of this behind to go and live with your best friend James Potter and to join the order of course."
He watched her closely while she said this, still looking stubborn and dark. "Well if you mean.. I just think that it is hard to make up for such a backgroud."
"No, it isn't!" Hermione sain insistingly. "Don't you see? There may have been the Sirius from this house, who could have been easily taken over by all that dark stuff that was going on here. But there also was the Sirius who saw the madness in all this. And he chose. You chose. You left here, at the age of sixteen, Sirius! You chose your own company, James and Remus and the Weasleys and…"
"You." It took only this one syllable to silent her. Sirius smiled at her, a warm and affectionate smile that made her feel nonplussed.
"I understand what you want to tell me, Hermione and you have no idea what it means to me." Hermione felt the corners of her eyes burn and she quickly looked the other way. But Sirius didn't let go.
"I should not have attacked you in the first place. You are doing nothing but telling me the truth and I will be forever grateful for this, no matter what stories are still to come." He wanted to touch her hand, to make her look at him again. He wanted to show her how much he owed her for this, for acting against her best friend's will just for him.
But suddenly, Hermione got up from the bed. She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand this closeness that made her loose control, like it nearly had in the corridor, when he had been too close.
"Goodnight, Sirius. I see you tomorrow night, same time." And she was gone.
-------------------
Trying hard to keep
calm, Hermione arrived in her bed a few moments later. She lay on top
of the sheets, breathing hardly, feeling too hot to get under the
blanket. The thoughts were spinning in her mind.
What happened to
her? Was she going mad?
The way Sirius made her feel was troubling
her, she could not handle it. Her emotions had changed so rapidly,
she could not make out any logic in them. At first she had only seen
a man who had been treated injustly. Her instinct had told her that
she needed to help him, that she needed to save him from being lied
to, from suffering when he found out the truth by himself, which she
was convinced would have happened sooner or later.But then there
was something else. Everytime he looked her in the eyes, she felt
herself getting nervous, his gaze made her insecure, made her loose
herself.
Deep down, she knew what it was, but she couldn't
admit it, she couldn't even think it, because this would mean at
least that she was considering it. She shook her head, desperate to
get rid of those emotions, but she couldn't and somewhere in the
back of her head there was a little voice acusing her of not trying
hard enough.
You don't want to get rid of it. It feels too good. He
feels too good. When he looks at you, you feel at home and in some
exciting place you didn't even dare to dream about in the same
time.
She hung her head. "It would be better if I didn't visit
you anymore." Hermione whispered into the dark. But she couldn't
do that either. He was relying on her. 'For Sirius, I am the link
to his old self and he needs me. If I leave him now, he will feel
more lost then ever, I have to finish what I started.' Hermione
thought. And she decided to continue their secret meetings, even
though she promised herself to shut out every inappropriate feeling
for Sirius and to focus entirely on helping him getting his memory
back.
The next morning Sirius
was sitting in the kitchen, spilling toast crumbs all over his front.
He couldn't manage to focus on anything he was doing, because there
was something worrying him. Hermione had not come down to breakfast
yet and Sirius was both eagerely awaiting and dreading her entry,
because he was unsure about how she would behave after what had
happened last night.
He had seen the fear in her eyes when they
had again wandered on the edge of something he didn't dare to think
about just yet. She knew it would be oh so wrong, there was no
mistaking this. Sirius had given this a lot of thought after she had
fled his bedroom and he had come to the conclusion that he had not
imagined the tension between them, that she had felt it too and that
this had been the reason she had left him so suddenly.
He was
torn between not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable and the
desire to get closer to her. She was intriguing him more and more
with each moment he knew her. At first he had been fascinated mainly
by her character and mind, but he couldn't help but catching
himself watching her every movement lately. Just seeing her sit and
read caused him to wonder what it would feel like to stand behind her
and stroke her hair from her shoulders. He felt terribly guilty and
disgusted by himself because of those thoughts, given that she was
Harry's best friend and not even of age.
But then… she was so
beautiful and he wanted to be close to her, he wanted to touch her,
hold her and he didn't need a single memory to know that this had
nothing to do with gratitude.
"Morning Hermione!
How was your night?" Ron's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
The redhead held the door for Hermione in mockingly gentleman-like
way. She passed him saying: "Thank you, Ronald, I slept soundly.
How very thoughtful that you should ask"
"I am most glad to
hear that!" He smiled at her, Hermione smiled back, whilst Sirius
felt his eyes narrow as he saw the two of them stand there. Then he
noticed how silly he was behaving and felt ashamed immediately.
Throughout the whole breakfast, Sirius felt Hermione avoiding his eyes. It was like he had feared. The events of the last night had made her too uncomfortable to ever talk to him again. Suddenly, he felt lost and lonely and the need to get away from the noisy crowd around the table. He murmured an excuse to Remus, who was seated next to him and left the room without attempting to look at Hermione again.
Hermione was hurt to see Sirius leave the table like that. She had wondered how he would act after last night. She had hoped to find him as sensible and relaxed like she wished to be, but was utterly disappointed. He hadn't even greeted her, hadn't looked at her once. The fear that he might be mad at her dawned inside her, or that he might find her silly and didn't want to work with a confused schoolgirl anymore. The excitement to see him had turned into a deep insecurity she couldn't manage to get rid of for the whole day.
At night, Sirius was
sitting in his room. He had pretended to be reading and not wanting
to be disturbed. But since ten minutes, he had even given up
pretending to be absorbed in the book he was holding and was staring
at the door. Last night, Hermione had entered his room around this
hour. Sirius wanted to see her, he wanted to hear what she had to
tell him. And he wanted to be with her.
But she didn't come.
Hour after hour passed and when Sirius finally fell asleep it was
almost dawning.
Hermione woke with a start. Ginny was still asleep, it was very early in the morning. She felt horrible. Even though yesterday evening the decision not to visit Sirius that night and to let things rest for a while had seemed a good idea, it didn't look like such a good idea from this side of the night. She had been lost in weird dreams all night and a headache joined her feelings of guilt toward Sirius. Hermione felt like she had left him alone.
Those feelings (including the headache) didn't leave her for the entire day. Again, she didn't see much of Sirius, as he always seemed to rush out of the rooms she was entering. Slowly, Hermione felt her sense of guilt turn into anger. She felt annoyed by him behaving like that. She wanted to face him and tell him that he had no right to leave her alone with this.
"Yes, I am sure that
you will find those nice tabecloths in that closet next to the
library, please would you be so kind to fetch them for me, I want to
see, if they are still OK." There was no way of denying Mrs.
Weasley's wish. Sirius sighed and stumped up the stairs. His bad
mood made him search the closet more noisily than required."Is
it REALLY necessary to make such a racket out there?" an angry
voice shouted from inside the library. Before Sirius could react, the
door flew open and he found himself face-to-face with Hermione, her
hair drawn into an untidy ponytail, a massive volume called "Insinde
the Magical Mind" in her arms. His heart leapt. "I – I am
sorry…"
But she cut across him: "There is no need to be so
loud out here, I am trying to concentrate, if you don't
mind!"
Sirius silented her with a long look: "This is not what
I am sorry about. I am sure, if you can read in a noisy comon room,
you can read here too."
"What?" Hermione was lost for words.
And this meant something, Sirius smiled to himself.
"I mean that
I am sorry for the last two days. I was so stupid not to talk to you
just because I didn't know what to say."
"You – you didn't
know…? This means you weren't mad at me after all?"
"Why
should I be mad at you? You are helping me. But I can understand if
you were mad at me." Sirius looked at her, waiting for an
answer.
Hermione seemed more relieved that anything else: "Well,
I was mad at you not talking to me, but that had nothing to do with…
um… with you know – what I want to say is that I accept your
apology and I hope you accept mine too."
"I do, sure."
Sirius smiled. Hermione was very glad that he didn't try to find out what she had
intended to say in the first place.
"Will you visit me again
tonight?" Sirius asked.
Hermione smiled, holding up the heavy
book: "What do you think I am reading this for?"
And this night, Sirius' bedroom door opened right on schedule.