A/N: Spectacularly crappy day but I still got a chapter out. Enjoy, everyone!

The bedroom door creaked open an hour later, pulling a drowsy Hermione from her slumber. She rolled over in bed and smiled sleepily over at the newcomer; it was Sirius. But in the span of just a few seconds she realized that something was terribly amiss.

Sirius's handsome face was gaunt and worried; he leaned back against the door and stared off into space, fixing his gaze on some faraway, mysterious point in the distance. She could still hear the soft murmurs of Remus and Harry's voices in the next room, but Sirius seemed altogether unaware of them. Or of her.

"Are you all right?" she asked softly.

It seemed to take Sirius a minute to process the question. When he did, his responding laugh was closer to a bark than an expression of humor. His face seemed torn between a performative attempt at happiness and the naked honesty of fear. Hermione's heart went out to him.

Slowly Sirius paced toward her, lowering his voice.

"I'm going to tell you something I haven't told the others," he began haltingly. "I feel like I'm… starting to slip away. Like whatever hold the veil had over me is coming back, now that I've destroyed the horcrux. I'm… I'm starting to lose certain sensations, Hermione." He knelt beside the bed and pressed his forehead against it. "I don't know what's happening to me."

Hermione's stomach dropped. In all of her readings there hadn't been much information on the veil, which still ultimately remained shrouded in the secrecy cultivated by the Department of Mysteries. They had no frame of reference for what might or might not be happening to him.

"What kind of sensations, Sirius?"

In response, Sirius looked up and rested his arm beside her on the mattress, brusquely pushed back his sleeve, and pinched the tender pale skin of his forearm.

"It started this morning," he said. "See this? I can feel it, but only faintly. Only just. And the thing is—the thing that makes this harder—is that I remember what it used to feel like." He swallowed. "Pain."

Hermione searched for some measure of comfort to offer, something that wouldn't frighten him. It was strange for him to be coming to her with any fears or questions. For once she felt unequipped, small and young.

"What do you think it means?" she asked him, mostly for something to say. Hermione knew he must already have his suspicions. After all, she had them too.

Sirius wiped his face furiously of the tear or two that had slipped from the corners of his eyes.

"I think you know what it means," he said quietly, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't know how to tell them. I don't know what to say to Harry, Hermione—"

"Shhh. Sirius. Stop."

Hermione reached for him instinctively and pulled him into the bed beside her, that barrier of space between them long since broken. Despite his misgivings, she could still feel a soft heat emanating from his body; he was, in fact, very much alive. Sirius closed his eyes as she ran her fingertips down the length of his arm, passing over the red welt where he'd pinched himself.

"Can you feel this?" she asked him quietly as her fingers moved. He opened his beautiful gray eyes and looked into hers and nodded, inviting her to keep going.

"What about this?" she asked again, working her fingers now through his dark, unruly locks. He nodded again, closing his eyes. It must feel good, she thought.

Hermione moved next to his loose button-up, working through the few remaining buttons and rubbing her palms across his newly bare chest as she straddled him. Sirius spoke without prompting this time.

"Your warmth," he murmured, bucking gently underneath her. "The shape of your hands, your fingers. I can feel it all."

She worked further down his abdomen, pleased when she heard his breath hitch. She tugged at his waistband and slipped her hand beneath the fabric, grasping him. Sirius squeezed his eyes shut, moaning quietly.

"I feel that too, Hermione," he said, and he moved his hand to join hers, to show her the way he wanted her to touch him.

At this point she was aroused herself, turned on by the naked presence of his desire. Sirius opened his eyes and looked into hers, his breath coming fast.

"Wait, stop," he said. "I don't want to finish like this."

She obeyed, her hand slowing, then ceasing its movement entirely. She just wanted to make him feel good. To make him forget about everything else.

"Tell me what you'd like, Sirius," she said. "Tell me what you want."

It was as if he'd only been waiting for an invitation. He sat up, making quick work of his remaining clothing and moving to hers next, though there was little left. He pulled her shirt so quickly he ripped the top button, and finally her underwear finally slid free from her hips.

Hermione moved to the center of the bed, lying on her back and looking at him questioningly. He'd stopped just as suddenly as he'd started, poised above her with one hand stroking his cock, and now he was just gazing down at her.

Unsurprisingly, Sirius Black seemed to prefer being on top.

"I'd like you like this," he said, looking down at her with one of those familiar, lopsided grins that drove her mad. "If that's all right."

She nodded vigorously to communicate her want and he traced almost absently across her nipple, thumbing it over and over. She bit back a moan, trying to be quiet, trying not to disturb the conversation going on in the kitchen, and then opened her legs to him, urging him against her.

"Do it."

He moved immediately, sliding into her like velvet. They both groaned together, quietly, Sirius pressing his face into her shoulder to mute the sound of his pleasure.

"I feel that, Hermione," he whispered, trailing soft kisses across her collarbone. "I feel you."

She began to fuck him from beneath because she could not help herself, rocking her hips against his over and over. He reached down beneath her to grasp her ass with one hand and began to fuck her back, their mutual movements releasing a series of stifled moans from both as they each took what they wanted.

Sirius pulled back to look into her eyes again, as if he was trying to memorize her. They were both panting and groaning as they moved against each other, a delicious heat steadily building between Hermione's legs. Sirius picked up his pace, sliding in and out of her hard and fast, each stroke smooth and deep and somehow followed by another that felt even better than the one before it.

God, how she loved to be fucked.

"Nothing's ever felt like this, Hermione," Sirius murmured. "Nothing's ever felt like you. Fuck, I'm gonna—"

She held his gaze as he came inside of her; there was nothing better than watching the change in a man's face the moment she brought him to orgasm. Sirius groaned; she wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed him a little deeper. He laughed breathlessly at how good it felt.

They looked at each other for a moment longer and then he collapsed on top of her, his arms shaking. It felt like every part of him was touching every part of her—Hermione was almost sure of it.

He rested against her for another moment, their heat and sweat mingling, and then he pulled out of her gently, rolled off, and immediately reached down between her legs.

Hermione pressed them together, reflexively stopping his fingers before they'd had a chance to move.

"Sirius," she said. "It's okay, you don't have to—"

"I want you to have this memory of me, Hermione," he said. He'd rolled onto his side, propped up on his elbow, their faces just centimeters apart.

"Of course, I won't if you don't want me to. But I'd like to make you feel good."

She opened her legs to him again, nodding and then shuddering the moment he renewed his touch. She was still so wet. Sirius moved his fingers past her clit, as if confirming this for himself, and shook his head slightly in wonderment, the hint of smile on his face.

He dipped one finger into her, his eyes darting back to hers to watch her react. She whimpered and then pressed down against him, angling her hips against his fingers.

He added another, his eyes still trained on her face. She responded again, her breath coming faster, and then he began to slide his fingers back and forth across her clit in earnest.

Hermione knew it wouldn't be long as she began to rock against him, releasing a few soft, eager moans as she moved faster and harder. His eyes dropped lower to soak in her body—her breasts, her arched back, her legs churning in the sheets—but he quickly returned to her eyes when she let out a soft whimper to tell him that she was close.

His fingers felt like magic, she thought, and laughed aloud. Magic. Fuck.

"That's right," he said softly. "It feels good, doesn't it?"

She exploded, riding wave after wave of pleasure as she came for him; he softened the pressure of his fingers but kept moving them tantalizingly back and forth, slowly, so the orgasm seemed to go on and on. And all the while he watched her, his eyes never leaving her face.

After the last of it finally seemed to be ebbing away she laid there, jelly-limbed and panting, unable to move. He dragged his fingers up across her chest, circling each of her nipples, and then continued up to her mouth. She parted her lips obediently and sucked on his fingers, trying to commit his presence and the shape of him to memory.

All of it. Everything.

He pulled his hand away and kissed her.

"Merlin, this is going to sound sappy, isn't it," he murmured, stroking her face. "But… thank you for being here, Hermione," he said. "Thank you for that. For everything. I'm so grateful for you. I… I love you. Both of you," he added bashfully, nodding to the door, to Remus. "You know that."

She smiled softly and said, "I know," and he grinned back at her, rubbing the side of his face into the pillow.

But then, Hermione thought, maybe what he'd said had sounded like a goodbye. And she certainly wasn't ready for that.

She flipped onto him and kissed him all over, trying to make him laugh again, trying to keep the good, light feeling going. He reached up and held her in place above him, stopping her movement, tucking that loose strand of unruly hair behind her ear.

"It's okay," he said softly. "It's all right. I've realized something. Just now, really. I've decided that whatever comes next, I'm not afraid of it. Not anymore. It was like getting a second chance, you know? And that meant everything to me. Truly. I mean, I got to be here with you. With Remus. I got to see Harry again. Even if I don't get to see Voldemort defeated… I know it's coming. And I was part of the battle. I defeated a goddamn horcrux—that was kind of brilliant, wasn't it?"

He ran his thumb over her bottom lip and grinned roguishly.

"Dunno, d'ya think… maybe I finally grew up? Only took me a few decades."

She laughed and bent to kiss his forehead. He still felt warm to the touch, pulsing with the energy that made him uniquely human.

How she loved it. Loved him.

"Honestly, Hermione, the risk of being too earnest," Sirius added softly, "this time with you and Remus… and now Harry…" He looked away. "For so much of my life I've felt like I was missing out on something. Like I had been deprived. I'd been gifted seven golden years, and then… so much time in hell. And the things that happened to me are still the things that have happened to me, you know? I can't change that. It is what it is. But I can hold all of that, and still be grateful for this."

He laughed, his voice cracking, his eyes bright.

"Merlin, feelings. Did that make any sense?"

Sirius smiled up into Hermione's eyes, looking as impossibly beautiful and handsome as ever, and for reasons she couldn't quite understand, Hermione held her breath.