A/N: Hey there! Just want to pop in and give a quick content warning for brief discussion of suicidal ideation in the first section of this chapter. Take care of yourselves!
An hour passed. The minutes threaded by at an agonizing pace. Hermione perched on the edge of the couch, staring hard at the door, willing the knob to turn, willing the men to come back.
Why was Sirius gone? Had he left of his own accord, or had someone taken him? She should never have assumed they were safe—she understood that now. There was still so much that could go wrong.
She would have to go look for them herself; there was nothing else for it.
Hermione inhaled sharply. No more waiting.
She was just getting to her feet when the brass knob began to rattle and turn. The door opened to reveal Remus supporting the body of a semi-conscious Sirius. Both were pale, clearly affected by the intensity of the cold outside. Hermione gasped, reminded suddenly of herself after Ron left.
"Sirius—"
"Sometimes… a bloke just wants to go for a walk."
Sirius laughed weakly and tried to separate himself from Remus, but collapsed to the floor with a groan.
Hermione turned her gaze on Remus, eyes wide and incredulous.
"He was trying to leave," Remus said to her, pulling Sirius back to his feet. "And clearly it didn't go well." He lowered his voice, leaning close to her. "I don't think he's all right…"
They took Sirius to their bedroom and leaned him carefully against the foot of the bed, before the fireplace where he had visited Hermione as a dog—that night felt so long ago now. Sirius' head lolled back as they helped him sit; his eyelids fluttered. His skin was cold as snow.
"Lift up your arms," Hermione whispered urgently, the gravity of the situation rendering her tone muted. Sirius obeyed without protest and Hermione carefully pulled his destroyed shirt up over his head. She and Remus could see the source of the blood more clearly now—a deep cut running almost the full length of his forearm, touched with dirt at its edges—he'd likely been caught by a tree branch, she guessed. They exchanged a glance.
Hermione didn't speak, trying to contain her horror and concern, again wondering if it was her place to even voice those feelings out loud.
Remus, however, was feeling more outspoken.
"Sirius, you're a bloody idiot. You could have died," he said matter-of-factly, kneeling down to get a better look at the wound. He started to remove the dirt and blood with a rag dipped in some kind of ointment. Hermione didn't immediately recognize it by its appearance or sharp, minty scent; it might've been something Remus made himself.
Sirius hissed in pain when Remus touched him and tried to pull his arm back, but Remus just pulled Sirius' wrist hard toward his chest, efficiently continuing to wipe down the cut as if Sirius had not protested at all.
"I can't die," Sirius spat angrily, watching Remus work with resentment. "It's not possible."
Remus glanced up sharply from his ministrations, eyebrows furrowed.
"What, have you tried—"
"Of course! Of course I've tried!" Sirius laughed again. "You think I was stuck here alone all this time and didn't try to—"
"Merlin, Sirius."
Remus had stopped moving, even as the cut on Sirius' arm began to well up again. He was gazing into his old friend's eyes with a deep sympathy. Sirius clearly couldn't stand his pity, quickly breaking their gaze.
"You'll see." He pointed at the wound. "Tomorrow, this will be gone. I'll be exactly as I was."
He stopped and glared out the window.
"It's like I told you. Nothing ever changes."
Remus had gone very quiet. He gestured to Hermione, who'd drawn back into a corner, a little frightened by the intensity of the scene as it unfolded. She met him by the door.
"Finish putting the ointment on, and start wrapping his arm with these," he told her, passing over the tub of cream and some bandages. "I'll see if I can find anything else for his wounds in your bag."
"He was cold when I touched him—all that time outside without a coat," she whispered back. "Maybe that salve you used on me, if there's any left—"
Remus looked back over Hermione's head at Sirius, his expression unreadable.
"Yes, I'll look for it." He paused in the doorway as she moved to go to the bed, touched her arm.
"Hermione, if he says anything… unkind," Remus began, then stopped. "Just—he doesn't mean it. He doesn't mean what he says when he's like this."
Remus looked for a moment as if he might say he was sorry, but instead he turned and walked down the hall toward the living room, where Hermione's bag hung by the door.
Hermione turned around, holding the tub of ointment and the roll of bandages, wracked with trepidation as she looked at Sirius. He glared back at her. The sweet man, the kind eyes—all of that had vanished. The person that remained was hollow, a shell of himself.
Hermione knelt before him, dipping her middle finger into the tub of glossy white ointment.
"All right, Sirius, I'm sorry, this might sting—"
"It doesn't matter," he muttered, and when she touched him he didn't make a sound.
She worked in silence for a moment; Remus seemed to have mostly stopped the bleeding with the initial application, so she began to wrap Sirius' arm with the bandages.
Sirius tugged his arm away and said, "It's fine, I can take care of myself."
Irritated, Hermione sat back on her heels and watched him clumsily secure the loose end of the bandage with his non-dominant hand. Why did he always revert to such a childish attitude in difficult moments?
Pointedly avoiding eye contact, Sirius got to his feet and paced over to the fireplace, leaning against the mantel and staring darkly into the flames.
"Have you made any progress figuring out the enchantment on this blasted place?" he said tonelessly.
Her frustration spiked. This was the last thing she needed: to be interrogated about the work she was doing by the man who virtually never wanted to help—especially after the fright he'd given her and Remus both.
"No, Sirius," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and even. "I don't know why you're asking. Of course the moment I find anything out I'll tell you both. But this is old magic. Rare. It's not the kind of thing that shows up in your average textbook. But I'm trying to figure it out. I'm still looking."
He turned around, leaning the full length of his body against the wall beside the fire, and gazed at her impassively.
"I don't think… I mean, I don't think you need to be so upset," Hermione ventured haltingly. "Is it really so difficult to believe that the three of us might've ended up here for a reason? And, I mean, it's a good thing that you're still alive, isn't it? That the veil brought you here, because… because life wasn't done with you yet?"
Sirius chuckled bitterly.
"It's certainly not the fairy tale you're making it, Granger. I failed everyone, Harry most of all. Life's wrung me out like a goddamn towel, over and over again. And I can't get a reprieve."
He paced across the room to the nightstand and picked up the book from the stack Hermione was reading. She got to her feet quickly, worried he'd damage it—not the first time, after all—and watched him flip through the pages. He was moving far too fast to actually be reading anything.
A fraught, quiet moment passed before he turned around, smirking.
"Here, I can help you," he said sarcastically. "And I don't even have to finish the book, Granger, to know the truth." He paused. "We're not in some kind of purgatory. No. This is hell."
"Pretty rotten to say that being here with your best friend is hell—"
He laughed humorlessly, the sound of it a little hysterical.
"Do you know, Granger, what the two of you are doing to me?"
There was a swooping sensation in her abdomen. Slowly, deliberately, Sirius paced closer to her, his gray eyes flickering inscrutably in the firelight.
"I don't know what you mean, Sirius," Hermione responded evenly, lifting her chin.
"You know I can hear you, don't you?" he said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
Hermione flushed. "What?"
"The two of you. In the next room. Fucking," Sirius whispered. "Like animals."
She was a deep red now; she could feel it.
"We weren't trying to hurt you. I mean—we aren't. I didn't… I didn't know you felt like this," Hermione murmured, her normally quick responses juddering to a halt.
Sirius was trembling. He began to rub his temples in slow, methodic circles; his eyes were clamped shut. He spun away from her and laughed, so harshly it was almost a bark, and squatted back down before the fire.
"Do you know… do you know how long it's been for me, Granger?" Sirius breathed.
It was not the kind of question that invited an answer.
"I've been shunted from one prison to the next for almost all my life. And now the two of you show up here after I've spent years alone, managing my… desires. Finding other ways to live."
He turned suddenly. His gaze was magnetic, holding hers. Hermione held her breath.
"I've survived complete isolation, Granger. Dementors and Death Eaters. And now, here, this place, Remus, you… and you."
For a moment neither of them moved, staring at each other across the room.
A draft blew through; the house creaked.
Hermione had the sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff, and not knowing what lay below her or how great the fall would be.
Sirius had returned to staring into the fire, an expression of an incredible pain marring his handsome features.
She made a move to comfort him, hesitated.
But in the end, she couldn't help herself.
She knelt beside him and reached out, feeling that she had never been so far away yet close to someone at the same time. She placed her hand lightly on his thigh and thought for a moment that he looked like a much younger man—a boy, really—staring into the fire in the Gryffindor common room.
A great wave of affection for him washed over her, and she drew her hand gently across his leg in an attempt to soothe him. He was still staring hard into the fire, a lock of chestnut hair fallen partially into his eyes, as always. He looked just as handsome as he had the day they thought he'd died.
Then, suddenly, Sirius seemed to come to some kind of resolution.
He moved his hand very quickly to hers, holding it in place on his thigh, and then he turned and kissed her, hard.
Hermione's mind emptied.
Sirius reached up with his other hand to cup the side of her face, thumbing the curve of her jaw. His lips were unexpectedly soft, Hermione thought, and after that she stopped thinking. His desire was all-consuming. She kissed him back.
Sirius pulled away and looked at her then, an inscrutable expression on his face, and Hermione returned to herself, standing up—surprised, startled. Sirius stood too, never breaking their gaze.
"Hermione," he said quietly, and it was as if a wall had melted away between them.
It was at that moment that Remus returned.
Hermione tried to step back from Sirius, but he encircled her wrist with his fingers. She stood frozen in place. Sirius and Remus exchanged a long, piercing look.
Remus's expression was unreadable; he seemed to be considering something. And then—
"Keep going," Remus said.
Sirius pulled her back to him and began kissing her again, right where he'd left off. Hermione's arousal quickly overtook her confusion.
She was wearing a soft blue shirt held in place by a line of small, round buttons down the front; Sirius made quick work of it, beginning from the top and working his way lower.
He kissed a trail down her chest and stomach as the opening in the fabric expanded, exposing an increasing stretch of bare skin to the fire's warmth until very soon the shirt was completely undone, pooled around her on the floor.
Impatiently he ripped off her underwear, and then—and then.
Hermione shuddered and sighed as Sirius kissed that most sensitive part of her. Light-headed with pleasure as his tongue began to lap eagerly at her clit, she stumbled back and found Remus waiting behind her. He held her tightly in place, her back to his newly bare chest; his arms slid protectively around her ribs as she bucked against Sirius' mouth.
"It feels good, doesn't it?" he whispered in her ear before kissing the lobe, breathing gently into her ear in a way that shot goosebumps across her arms and back. Sirius hummed softly into her and all she could muster was a desperate whimper.
Sirius was quickly revealing himself to be a more aggressive lover than Remus, which was different but undeniably exciting. He had his hands pressed tightly against her ass, pushing her against his mouth so that she had increasingly little ability to move against him at all.
He was in control, and he wanted to make it clear.
His tongue slid deliciously in tight, quick strokes against her clit in the way that always made her shiver. Somehow he'd discovered her secrets already.
She released a moan that only seemed to excite him more—he began to move his tongue faster and harder against her clit. The pressure within her was slowly building. She couldn't stop watching him.
"Like that," she whimpered helplessly, pressing back against Remus. Sirius acquiesced.
As she moaned, Remus planted a series of soft, light kisses along her neck, brushing her hair back gently to give him better access, cupping one of her breasts with his other hand and rubbing gentle, tantalizing circles across her nipple.
Hermione could feel herself getting close, her body tensing. Remus, familiar with the signs, chuckled softly.
"So quick," he breathed, and moved to clasp both of her arms at the elbow, holding her firmly in place so that she couldn't shy away from what was coming or lessen its intensity, as she sometimes tried to do.
Unable to speak, Hermione released a series of small, quick moans, positively panting, trying to ride Sirius' face, desperate for release.
"She's getting close, Sirius, I can tell. This is what she does," Remus murmured, smiling against her skin, kissing the tender space where her neck and shoulder met. Hermione cried out.
Sirius gripped her so hard she knew his touch would leave a mark, and then he growled, as if he desired her so deeply that he had been reduced to some carnal, animal version of himself.
"We want you to come, Hermione," Remus said softly.
Sirius hummed his agreement against her clit, looking up at her, watching her face.
"Come for us."
It happened then.
She shook so hard she would no longer have been able to stand without the two of them holding her, Sirius' hands around her waist and Remus' tight around her arms. She was held in place, nowhere to go, nothing to do but let the pleasure thrum through her. She was pleasing them by experiencing pleasure herself.
Hermione barely recognized the sound she made. It, too, sounded animal. And it likely would have confused the neighbors, had there been any around to hear her.
But of course, it was just the three of them. For miles and miles and miles.
She leaned her head back against Remus' chest as the aftershocks coursed through her, moaning unrestrainedly. She could feel his uncovered cock throbbing against her lower back; watching her come had made him hard.
Sirius continued to move his tongue lazily around her clit for a moment longer. She looked down and saw a satisfied half-smile on his face as he pulled back. She'd pleased him.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he stood, pulling his pants off at last. She made a noise of involuntary approval when his cock sprang free; he began to stroke it with the other hand, the half-smile deepening at her response. It was not as long as Remus', but slightly thicker; it filled his hand as he moved it up and down.
Wordlessly, he reached for one of Hermione's hands and moved it to his cock, where she began to imitate his movements, understanding that he had just shown her how he liked to be touched and more than happy to acquiesce after the magic he'd worked with his tongue.
"Fuck," he whispered when she first touched him.
Hermione looked up at his face to see his eyes were closed, long lashes fluttering against his pale skin. It was clear that she was the first person to touch him like this in some time; she was overcome with the urge to make him feel good, to make up for the time he'd lost.
Remus kissed her neck again; she could still feel him behind her, against her, as she touched Sirius.
Hermione knelt to take Sirius' cock into her mouth, but he quickly stopped her, weaving his hands in her hair and tilting her head so that she was looking up at him.
"As good as I know that'll feel," Sirius breathed, "there's something else I'd like you to do."
Hermione watched his eyes go above her head to Remus', wordlessly asking a question. Remus' hands were in her hair now too as she knelt between them, stroking her in the way he knew she loved, running his fingers gently back from her forehead, along the part of her hair.
She closed her eyes dreamily, basking in the attention; she could hear the smile in Remus' voice as he responded.
"That's up to Hermione."
Hermione opened her eyes. Sirius looked down at her.
"Hermione," he said. "Can I fuck you?"
She gazed up at his body, that beautiful cock, already knowing her answer.
"Yes," she said softly.
The three of them went to the bed together, moving naturally, as if they'd done this many times before.
Remus settled back against the headboard. Hermione started on her back, her head resting on one of Remus' thighs, but as Sirius climbed onto the bed behind her he flipped her over easily onto her stomach.
"I want you like this," he said breathlessly, and Hermione just had enough time to meet Remus' gaze as Sirius entered her, sliding in effortlessly because of how wet he'd made her with his tongue just moments prior. Hermione gasped, and Remus' cock hardened further in her hand.
She bent her head to Remus as Sirius coursed in and out of her—immediately going fast, rougher with her already than Remus had ever been, but she couldn't deny that she liked this, too.
Remus groaned as she slid his cock into her mouth, running his fingers through her unruly hair and pulling it out of her face so he could watch her work him. At the same time Sirius began to tease her, pulling out briefly to rub the head of his cock against her opening, her still-sensitive clit. Her mouth full, she could only groan intelligibly, pushing her ass back against him, begging wordlessly to be filled once more.
"She knows what she wants, doesn't she," Sirius chuckled softly, perhaps a little amazed. "I never would've thought you had this in you, Granger."
Remus half-laughed, the sound turning into a moan as Hermione flicked her tongue across the tip of his cock.
"Sirius, you have no idea."
Sirius pushed back into her and began pumping again in earnest. He leaned forward now, his arms resting on either side of her, so that his stomach pressed against her back. They were closer than ever, and he was so hard inside her—deeper now, too.
He got very quiet, began to breathe heavily. Hermione could tell from the speed of his strokes what he was preparing to do; Remus was the same way when he was about to come, too.
Remus tangled his hands further in her hair, his eyes never leaving hers as she worked his cock. Sucking him off turned her on and he loved that, too—not just how good it felt, but the knowledge that she enjoyed it. She knew he never meant to do it purposely—always such a gentle lover—but he was far enough gone now that he had begun pumping his cock to meet her mouth, rocking his hips up to fill her further, so that he was going just a little bit deeper with every stroke.
They were both rigid inside of her. It wouldn't be long.
She could hear Sirius above her, actually laughing with the delight of how good she was making him feel.
"Fuck, I'm gonna come already," he murmured. "I'm gonna come, I'm gonna—"
Remus didn't speak but his breath grew more ragged, a sound she recognized.
Knowing the end was coming, she let herself revel for a moment in being an object of desire for both of them at once.
They wanted her, needed her, craved her unequivocally.
She could feel it.
Sirius gripped her ass hard and groaned; his cock throbbed as a delicious warmth spread inside of her. Remus' eyes flashed to Sirius' face and this pushed him over the edge, too; she swallowed greedily as his cock pulsed in her mouth.
The three of them remained in their position for a moment longer, each panting quietly.
Hermione had a sudden flash of uncertainty as she caught her breath.
Was this okay, what they had done together? Had it changed everything?
But then they began to shift.
Sirius came up alongside them, kissing first Hermione's thigh, then Remus', laughing gleefully. Remus caught Hermione's eye and nodded softly, pulling her into the space between them. He reached over her and tucked that perpetually loose lock of hair behind Sirius' ear. His smile widened.
Hermione understood in that moment that there was a current of something deeper than simple physical connection running through the three of them now.
An emotion she had not experienced in its truest form in many years:
It was joy.
A door creaked somewhere outside the bedroom.
The wind, perhaps, Hermione thought sleepily, nestled in her warm cocoon of body and blanket, still half inside the dream world that had welcomed her hours prior.
But then a floorboard creaked as well, and something was knocked off a shelf, too, and all of a sudden she was feeling much more awake.
She looked up into Remus' face to see that his eyes were already open, and on her other side there was a feeling of sudden absence, vanished warmth, as Sirius had just gotten out of bed.
Suddenly she could not tamp down her growing sense of fear. She had assumed if they could not leave, no one else could arrive. She had believed they were trapped by the strange magic of the cabin, but also protected by it.
But of course, she and Remus had found their way here even after Sirius had been stuck, alone, for years.
Sirius pulled on his pants from where they'd been tossed to the floor the night before. On the other side of the bed, Remus dressed in seconds, his shirt hanging open on his chest. For a beat they looked at each other, and Hermione wasn't sure how to quantify their expressions in that moment—it was something like love, fear, and protection all at once.
In that instant, she wanted to open her mouth and demand that both of them stay here with her in this room. Forever.
For she knew exactly where her wand was: in the living room, on the coffee table. She wanted to protect them, but she was defenseless. She could not speak.
Both men held their wands aloft, standing on either side of the door. Sirius nodded grimly at Remus; the sunlight streaked through one of the windows and hit his bare chest briefly, marking him. Remus nodded back, his shirt hanging open still.
And then Sirius silently pulled the door open and crept out.
Remus nodded now at Hermione, smiling comfortingly, and then he followed Sirius through the door.
Hermione immediately imagined that this might've been the last time he ever smiled at her. She couldn't bear it.
She got up from the bed, pulling on another of Remus' shirts, listening desperately. The floor was freezing under her bare toes.
She heard the floorboards creak, betraying Remus and Sirius' movement beyond the door.
Something fell.
Then, a roar. A crash.
She burst out into the hall.
Three men were standing in a broken triangle in the living room, each with their wands drawn.
Remus and Sirius, their states of rumple and undress starkly apparent in the unflinching light of morning, were both pointing their wands at a bundled, dark-haired man carrying a heavy backpack, snow gilding his scraggly beard.
A pair of round, broken glasses perched on the bridge of the stranger's nose.
