Chapter 9 - Barking

The next few nights, Hermione filled Sirius in with all she knew about his youth, his friends and his school-career. Sirius caught himself growing a little tired with her emphasising his being an excellent student at Hogwarts, but it also made him smile, it was so very Hermione and he liked that more with every minute.

"I know that Harry told you why Remus resigned after his year of being our Defence against the Dark Arts teacher."

Sirius nodded. "Yeah. Remus told me himself. He's a werewolf." Hermione smiled at how casual Sirius was taking this, a relaxed reaction like this to such an information was quite rare in the wizarding world.

"He was already a werewolf when you were still at school with him and James and, and Peter." Hermione was always worried about the moment that she would have to tell him what had become of his friend Peter. "And you three found out about that and moreover, you managed to be with him even while his transformations."

Sirius goggled at her: "Let me guess, we let him bite us and opened up a nice little werewolf-gang."

Hermione scowled: "Don't be silly. But, well you are not so far from the truth. You did oopen a little gang and that gang did consist only of animals, even though it did not involve anyone biting their friends."

"Sounds very, very interesting. Go on, what did we do?" Hermione saw a certain miscievious twinkle in his eyes. She sighed: "You all became Animagi."

"What? This is supposed to be difficult like hell and you have to register and all, don't you?"

"Unregistered Animagi, I forgot." Hermione said curtly, unable to hide her disapproval.

Sirius face split into a grin: "So, you tell me that we managed to become Animagi, that the Ministry had no idea about it, that our little zoo was running around with a werewolf once a month and all that right under Albus Dumbledore's nose?" Hermione nodded, suspecting what would come next. "Brilliant!" Sirius looked very pleased with himself.

"Well, I don't want to comment this, Sirius, even though, becoming an Animagus is quite an impressive academic achievement, you –"

"Alright, alright" Sirius was more interested in the practical side. "What animals could we change into?"

Hermione counted: "James was a stag, Peter a rat and you were a large, black dog, not much unlike a Grim, by the way."

"This means that, I should still be able to do it, shouldn't I?" Sirius looked excited.

"I do reckon, yes." Hermione had given this a lot of thought, but as Sirius still semed to possess all his other magical powers, why should this particular ability have left him? "Go on, try it." Hermione couldn't deny that she was interested if he really could still do it.

"What do I have to do?" Sirius seemed very keen, but a bit lost at the moment. He had risen from the bed they used to sit on while Hermione's visits and was standing in the room, bare-feeted, dressed in a pair of loose dark jeans and a black T-Shirt. Hermione shrugged. "There is no incantation, it says you can turn into your Animal at will. I think you have to concentrate very hard, that's what Professor McGonagall said when we covered Animagi."

Sirius concentrated. Nothing happended. "I don't even know how I looked like as a dog."

"Well, you were very large, a bit bear-like and jet black, like your own hair, with pale eyes." Suddenly, Hermione remembered something. "Wait, I'll be back in a second!" And she dashed out of the room.

A few moments later, Hermione quietly shut the door again, triumphantly holding up a massive volume, reading "Seeing the Dark Side".

"Alright." Sirius said. "what good will a book about dark omens do?"

"Didn't you pay attention? Look" Hermione flipped through the pages and found what she was looking for. "I am personally not so much into that foggy Divination stuff, but your dog lookes remarkably like this." And she showed Sirius a picture of a large, black death omen – the Grim.

"A bit frightening, don't you think?" Sirius exemined the illustration.

"You look a good deal friendlier, most of the time, but when you are angry, you get quite close to this."

With the image of the Grim in his mind, Sirius tried again. He tried to imgine what running around as a dog must feel like, he tried to remember every bark he had ever heard and suddenly...

"YES!" Hermione yelled, just to clap her hands over her mouth, to make herself go quiet.

Sirius stood there, bewildered. He was on all four, but it didn't feel awkward, but very right. He wagged his tail. Wait. He had a tail? He turned around just to catch a glimpse of a jet-black tail gliding out of sight immediately. He turned faster in order to catch it, though for a fleeting moment that this was completely silly dog behaviour, but didn't give a damn. This was fun. He ran a few circles around the bed, astonished by his speed and the joy of running, jumped onto the bed, just to be shooed down by a laughing Hermione. She was laughing out loudly now, happy to see Sirius so extatic and joyful, hoping at the same time that the silencing charm she had cast over the room would proof itself effective. Sirius pleased himself ith speeding around the room, eventually barking, then he playfully started chasing Hermione around. She joined in on the game – Sirius didn't really leave her any choice – and was soon panting and laughing. She was getting hot, so she removed the thick wooly jacket she used to have wrapped around her and was left only with her thin pyjama pants and the matching shoulderfree shirt. She threw the jacket at the black dog that approached her once more. "No, don't you dare come after me any more! This is enough, Sirius, I will leave, I tell you!"
Finger raised threateningly, Hermione took a step towards the door, but Sirius was quicker. He rose onto his back paws and jumped at Hermione's shoulders to stop her. He obviously had been a little too enthusiastic because they over-balanced and Hermione fell, shrieking, backwards towards the floor.

She didn't hit the floor as hard as she had expected to and it didn't take her long to figure out why.
Sirius had transformed again while they had fallen and had protected her head with his one arm and had intercepted the collision with his other arm. Panting slightly, he looked down into her Hermione's eyes. Sirius realised that he was lying on his bedroom floor, with Hermione in his arms, her face only inches from his. He could smell her, he could feel her warm and female body next to his, his hands were on the soft skin of bare arms. He sunk into her deep brown eyes and hoped he would never have to surface again. Hermione felt all the cautions slip away from her as she felt him so close. It was the same sensation as when he had cornered her in the corridor. There was only one thing she could think of, she wanted him to bend down and kiss her. His soft lips were so close, she could almost taste them, and Sirius srong arms around her felt so right. Hermione could feel his heart beat, she felt hers skip a beat as he slowly bent down to her lips –

When suddenly they both winced at the sound they heard from the door. "The door-" Sirius' eyes had widened alarmedly.

"Sealed" Hermione said, scrambling to get up from the floor. "I knew it, we where too loud for that stupid silencing charm!"

They both stood in the middle of the room, listening hard. Hermione knew, if someone knocked and found her here, there would be some tricky qustions to answer. She imagined how outraged Harry would be with her if he found out what she was doing.

Sirius slowly and soundlessly moved towards the door, finally deciding that there was nobody out there. Then they heard footsteps - moving up the staircase. Hermione sighed in relief and sat down on the bed. "That was close. Imagine someone had burst in…" At that very moment she realised herself what the intruder might have seen and closed her eyes in horror. "They would have been mistaken." She muttered to herself.

"What do you mean?" Sirius somehow didn't really look at her.

"Nothing, I just – Never mind. I should go."

"Yeah, I think I need some sleep. Goddnight!"

"Night." Hermione found her hand still trembling when she reached for the doorknob.

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Remus watched Sirius suspiciously at the next dinner when everybody was gathered around the table again. He had the impression that his friend couldn't get his eyes from Hermione Granger. Sirius followed her every move when she wasn't looking, he lokked away when she was and he jumped every time she spoke, as though expecting to be addressed by her any minute.

At a quit moment, Remus bowed over to Sirius. "Hey mate, I have to talk to you about something."

Sirius jumped: "What, sorry, Remus I wasn't paying attention."

"Obviously." Remus hissed.

"What is it?" Sirius asked, irritated by Remus' tone.

"Sirius, is it possible, that yu are picking up an old habit once more?"

"As you might have noticed Remus, I do not recall my old habits, sorry." Sirius didn't know what made him so aggressive, but he somehow felt as though Remus knew him inside out.

"Well, Sirius, you semmed to have developed a certain interest in Hermione, if I am not very much mistaken."

"I – that is rubbish, Remus I just think she and Harry arent getting along so well lately and I wondered why." Sirius was astonoshed how easily this had come out. He seemed to have really needed a good lie.

But Remus pressed on to the subject. "Yeah, probably, I senses some tension myself between them, but I mean something else Sirius. Do you feel attracted by her?"

"What?" Sirius was astounded about Remus being so direct.

"I ask you this because this is what you used to do. You were quite popular, I told you that already, but this didn't make you choosing at random. You had in fact a very fine taste. Always went for the special ones. Especially daring, especially smart, especially funny and always especially pretty of course."

"What do you mean? Listen, this is silly. She is sixteen!" Sirius desperately wanted this conversation to end.

"I mean that Hermione fits your scheme superbly. If she isn't special, that who is?" At this point, Sirius felt annoyed, after all it wasn't Remus' business if hermione was special or not. "And I heard you say more than once in the past that if you were sixteen now, she wouldn't be single much longer. And that was last year, before Hermione changed into that stunning young woman she is now."

Sirius' voice had gone into a low hiss "I can only say that you are completely missing the point, Remus. I have nothing like that in mind whatsoever. And she is drop-dead gorgeous, there is no denying that, but I am astounded how much thought you seem to have given that fact." With this Sirius rose from the table and left a stunned Remus sitting back in his chair, more worried than ever before.

On his way to the staircase, Sirius bumped into Hermione.

"Sorry, I –"

"What's the matter, Sirius? You look a bit deranged. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I just needed a bit of fresh air."

Hermione grinned and pointed to a big window that sha had left half ajar. "So did I. Want to join in?"

Sirius gratefully took her offer and stood next to her as she sat on the windowsill.

"I wanted to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was… completely irrational and out of bounds. It shall never happen again." If there was one thing Sirius adored above all other about his relationship with Hermione, it was that he could speak his mind to her, or at least most of it.

"No need to apologise. It was my fault too. We shouldn't be so – um – loud again." Hermione looked at his moonlit profile. Sirius seemed to be hesitatng for a moment, like he menat to say something else but then he nodded. "Alright then, no more barking." His smile was still a bit awkward, but a lot more cheerful than before. "Will you come to me again tonight?"

For a fleeting instant, Hermione's conscience told her to yell 'NO' and 'DON'T YOU SEE WHERE WE ARE GETTING OURSELVES INTO?' at him, but she couldn't. She wanted to proceed with their meetings and she knew that for Sirius' sake she could not abandon them now, whatever her conscience told her.

Hermione nodded, glancing sideways at Sirius. "I will be there."

"I will be waiting for you."

As she turned to leave, Sirius said "Hermione!"

"Yeah?"

He held his breath, then: "Nothing, just, thank you."

"That's a lot." She smiled and turned towards the kitchen.