A/N: Hello! Why? Because when in doubt, Sirimione :) Bit of a different thing from me, a Muggle AU, no Voldemort, no death eaters. Next on the docket is Harry x Pansy.
Criminal Minds
Prompt: Sirius + Hermione criminal minds
for anon
Hermione sat on the 'guest' chair in the cramped interview room and tried not to let her discomfort show. But really, did they search the world over to find the worst chair in existence? Or was it just an unfortunate happenstance? How had they managed to find a chair that was both too soft and too firm? As well as being too low for even a person of her stature to be comfortable. In any case, it would have been beyond unprofessional of her to comment. The man she was meeting wasn't even afforded the 'luxury' of a chair in his room, uncomfortable or not. The least she could do was hold it together for the hour she had to bear with it.
Hermione arranged her detailed notes, in code, of course, around the table and fiddled with the edge of her soft blue blouse. It didn't matter how many times she did this, or how many qualifications she got, the first meeting with a detainee always made her nervous.
She clicked her neck from side to side and opened a file, absently running her fingers over the HM Government branded embossing that was lining the folio.
Hermione started working for the Department of Corrections after collecting her first degree and had been slowly working her way up the ranks ever since. Six months ago, she had been promoted to Leading Psychologist for the department, a goal she had been working towards for over two years. As well as a cheap bottle of champagne, a paltry raise and a dusty kiss on the cheek she had been given the real perk of her new job... a research grant with broad scope terms that gave her almost carte blanche on how she could spend it. Hermione had spent the last five years working on her thesis; The Reformation of Criminal Deviancy, and now she finally had the money, and the workplace afforded clearance to put all of her plans into action.
The final stage required her to assess seven individuals currently serving life sentences in maximum-security prisons. Hermione firmly believed that these places were doing nothing to help reform these inmates; in fact, in many cases, incarceration and poor treatment were making them worse. If she could work with these people and make changes that would show behavioural improvements, she would have the substantive evidence she had been seeking in her quest to reform the prison system from the inside out.
Subject #4 was Sirius Black, convicted twelve years before for the murder of three of his best friends and twelve innocent bystanders after he - and his group of friends - got involved with a notorious drug cartel.
After a short wait, Hermione heard a familiar jangling shuffle, and she stood from behind the table to greet Mr Black when he entered.
Her low heels clicked noisily on the cheaply tiled floor, and Hermione did her best not to grimace. So much ground could be made or lost in the first seven seconds of meeting someone new, and the importance was heightened when working with inmates. In prison, people often had to make quick judgement calls on how to act and who to trust in the face of near-constant threats. A lousy introduction could signal the end of the project.
Hermione looked down at herself to make sure she was still in relatively good order and pushed her hair back off her shoulders.
She had read every piece of intelligence she could find on Mr Black, which had not been easy as his file had been heavily redacted. As such clues as to where to go next with her research had been thin on the ground. What she had cobbled together was less than she had for any other subject of the study, but it was enough. It had to be.
Sirius Black had been raised with money, though he had shaken off any family connexions around the time of his sixteenth birthday. He had been a good student, though his files were sealed, so Hermione had only been able to access his final transcript. He'd had all the makings for an exemplary career in front of him. So what had happened? There was no paper trail to let her know. For the rest, she would need to be informed by him and his level of receptiveness to her endeavours.
The heavy door opened loudly, and Hermione straightened as Sirius Black walked even, flanked by bored-looking guards. Even in her heels, he was much taller than her though he was slight as well, no doubt made more so by his time in this place.
He didn't avoid her eye contact, which was good as first indications went, and Hermione thought he seemed curious. He regarded her standing away from the desk with apparent bemusement, and Hermione was relieved he didn't show any of the visible physical signs of long term incarceration that she had come to expect. However, he did have a nasty looking black eye. Surreptitiously she scanned the knuckles of both the guards, but there was nothing there that would allow her to point the finger. It didn't abate her anger.
She was going to reform this corrupt system and drag its medieval ideals screaming into the twenty-first century if it was the last thing she ever did.
"Mr Black," she greeted formally and then took her seat. The guard pushed him down into a chair opposite, and Hermione waited for him to finish making a production of leaving before she spoke again.
"You know why I am here?" she asked, and he nodded.
He opened his cracked lips as if intending to reply, but the only sound that ground out was a rasp that had been torn from the back of his throat.
Hermione quickly grabbed one of the glasses she had requested and filled it to the brim. Sirius eyed it warily but apparently, thirst won out, and after a couple of seconds, he had the glass pressed to his lips as he gulped down the liquid in quick mouthfuls. Hermione refiled the glass twice before he was sated.
"Inter… view," he said eventually with the air of someone who was unpractised with speech.
The fingers of Hermione's left hand gripped into her thigh until she could almost feel the flesh give way under her trousers. She picked up a pen in her other hand and turned pages in her notebook until she found space.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr Black. Do you think you could talk me through the events that led you to be here today?"
He put the glass back down on the table and Hermione noticed his tattooed fingers. She'd seen a few pictures of him before he was incarcerated; he certainly hadn't had them then. While it wasn't unusual for prisoners to 'get ink' these were more extensive than she was used to and they had been applied with a great deal of skill.
"I thought... you were... a shrink?" he stuttered out, and Hermione smiled at the moniker even though it usually made her wince.
"I am," she affirmed with a nod.
His eyes narrowed. "Then why... are you talking... like a lawyer?"
"Am I? Well if I am, it's very insulting of you to point it out."
Hermione almost slammed her fingers over her lips. She hadn't meant to say that. That incredibly glib sentence could have been seen as personal and certainly not reflective of her usual professional, squeaky clean approach.
Discomforted, she quickly ruffled through her papers in an attempt to recover herself and the interview and then, when she looked up again, Mr Black was watching her more intensely than before. Hermione noticed a glimmer of something in his eyes that she faintly thought might have been amusement, but she refused to analyse it further. Which was ridiculous, as studying the man in front of her was literally what she was there to do.
They were the most arresting colour, his irises. Hermione had seen blue-grey eyes before, but never anything that looked quite like his. It was difficult to make out the rest of his true appearance, his face was all harsh lines that didn't look like they suited him and his hair was overgrown and limp and obscured most of his other features. Yet there was something.
Hermione imagined if she looked at him in the right light for long enough her brain would have been able to connect all the dots and fill in an image of what Sirius Black would look like now if he weren't in here.
But he was here, in prison.
Mr Black leant forward in his chair, and Hermione heard the clinking of the chains at his feet.
"This another… assessment?" he asked, devoid of emotion as he took another deep swallow of water. "You show me… inkblots, I tell you they look like… blood and death."
"That's not really why I'm here," Hermione explained lightly and then she picked up her notepad again. "Will you tell me about yourself?"
Hermione found herself on Harry's doorstep the next day, practically itching to tell him about her latest interview. While it was strictly against protocol to do so, Hermione excused herself on the grounds that Harry was also a high ranking civil servant, in a twinned department, and he had helped select some of her subjects. His job at the Ministry of Defence made him aware of cases Hermione would never have heard of otherwise.
Harry was remarkably quiet when she arrived, and Hermione was surprised to find that Ginny and the kids were nowhere in sight. It was almost unnatural to enter the Potter homestead and not be nearly deafened by a stampede of children that would attack you like a tidal wave.
"Park," Harry said simply in response to her enquiring eyes and Hermione nodded, though she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
She had been expecting Ginny to look at her with a familiar eye-roll, laughing at Hermione and Harry's inability to stop themselves from talking 'shop' even at the weekend. Because of the nature of who they were, their life experiences and their jobs, they often took opposing views on the issues around criminality and the justice system. Their friends had referred to their workplace dynamic as 'he locks 'em up, and she gets 'em out', and though it was a severe reduction of their opposing roles and views, the definition had stuck.
Hermione followed Harry into the kitchen and gratefully accepted a cup of tea before launching into a typically scathing attack of the prison she visited and its so-called guards. She couldn't have guessed at the last time the place had been thoroughly cleaned. The communal areas and entrance were terrible, but she imagined the cells must have been genuinely horrid. She hadn't been able to sneak a peek in the dining hall, but Hermione had been reliably informed by a trusted source that the food was regularly not meeting the nutritional standards it should.
As Hermione worked herself up, Harry failed to rise to be the bait and didn't make any of his usual rejoinders. Hermione was beginning to think had stopped listening when he suddenly put down his drink.
"What of him, the guy you met?"
Hermione took another sip of tea and wracked her brain over how to answer. "He wasn't exactly what I expected," she said finally. It was the understatement of the century, but it was at least sincere. She swung her legs against the stool she was perched on and thought of Sirius Black. He had sat up and been fully attentive throughout their entire conversation.
"He was calm," she continued, "and courteous for the most part, though I never got the impression he was using that as a tool to lure me in. Old fashioned manners I would have said if I'd met him in any other circumstance. He never spoke too long before pausing to ask me something about myself."
"He recounted his life story almost as if he was remembering it for the first time. I got the impression he hadn't thought of some of those moments for a long while. He didn't cover his case, not as such, he seemed to gloss right over a year or so in time and then picked up again from when he got to prison."
Harry drummed his fingers against the breakfast bar hard enough to cause ripples in what was left of his water.
"When are you seeing him again?"
"Next month," Hermione replied thoughtfully. She always scheduled the meetings with a gap to allow her some reflection time. For some reason, she wished she hadn't bothered for Mr Black.
"Harry, is evening okay? You don't seem yourself."
Harry fidgeted, pushing his chair back and then pulling on the front of his hair before he got up and reached for the cupboard above the fridge, where they kept the booze.
"Harry?"
He ignored her. Harry grabbed a bottle of Scotch, a good one if Hermione was any judge, and brought it back to the table where he slowly poured two very full glasses. It was ten in the morning. Hermione said nothing as Harry nudged one into her waiting fingers and then retook his seat.
"Harry?" she pressed again as she stared down at her beverage. Harry knocked back half his measure and then dropped it back on the table with a short gasp as if he wasn't prepared for the alcohol to hit his throat.
"He's my Godfather," Harry said at last, and Hermione nearly dropped the heavy glass still warming between her fingers. She put the cut crystal down, back onto the safety of the table as her mind shuddered to a halt.
"What?" she whispered.
Harry shook his head in disbelief. "I expected you to come to me sooner," he said before taking another long drink. "I thought you would have figured it out before you even got there."
Hermione stared at him. For the first time in their long friendship, she felt rage just looking at him. She had been angry at him before, of course, but never like this.
"Do you think that absolves you?" she spat, taking her own sip and silently wishing that the burning liquid would somehow cool the fire inside of her. "Do you think 'thinking I would figure it all out' makes it okay for you to have kept quiet about something like this?"
Hermione dropped her head into her hands and massaged her temples with her fingers. "You suggested that case Harry, and you never let on a thing. We don't do that, never to each other. Both of our careers could be on the line over this."
"I'm sorry," Harry replied earnestly. He started pulling at his hair again, and Hermione was startled to realise he looked near tears.
"I wasn't thinking straight," he explained. "I found out about him at the end of last year. I had no idea he even existed before that. All my life I'd thought there was no one apart from my aunt and uncle… and Dudley, I suppose. Not really anyone to call a family. Then you showed up the day after I knew about him, about Sirius Black. You were beaming. You said you had your promotion, and you needed my help, and it felt like fate."
"You don't believe in that shit, Harry," Hermione sneered, and Harry laughed. There was no joy in the sound.
"No, I don't, and yet here we are."
"How did you even find out?" Hermione questioned, rubbing her fingers over the carvings in the glass. "The names and most of the pertinent details were removed from the records."
"Kingsley showed me after my twenty-fifth birthday," Harry replied, not meeting her eyes. "He, Kingsley I mean, he knew them all."
The Prime Minister knew? The fucking Prime Minister? Hermione was sure she was going to have a heart attack. There was no way she would be able to include him in the study now; the conflict of interest was off the charts. She would have to declare the error at work and see what could be done about putting everything straight. If she were lucky, she wouldn't have to start all over again.
"Hang on," she said, interrupting Harry as he continued his bleak tale of Shacklebolt taking him down to the official records room.
"All? What do you mean? Oh my god... your parents. They were the friends that he..."
Sirius Black was convicted of murdering three of his best friends…
"Murdered?" Hary interjected. "Yeah, that's them."
They were quiet for a time. Hermione cradled her drink in her hands and laid her head back, shutting her eyes. She'd known Harry for a long time, since the first day of school in fact. She thought she'd known about his parents for almost as long. Harry was not usually one for keeping secrets, not from people he loved in any case. James and Lily Potter had been the darlings of MI6 back in their day, and both had been tipped for greatness. But they'd been cut down in their prime, apparently by the man she had spent yesterday interviewing.
"Are you still going to go back?" Harry said eventually, and Hermione stiffened.
"How can you ask that of me? How can I, now I know?"
Harry pulled at his collar and swivelled in his seat until he reached out to pour himself another glass. "I just need to know what happened, okay? He's the only one that might know something. There was never even a formal trial!"
Hermione had gathered as much from her conversation with Sirius, or rather the gaps in his story. It had seemed so odd at the time, but now the pieces were beginning to fall into place. James and Lily Potter had been government workers just like them. The words cover-up appeared in front of her eyes, and Hermione felt sick.
She had dreams, plans she'd had since she was little more than a child. People were relying on her. But 'people' was an abstract term, far more intangible than the man she looked on as family sitting across the table.
"Okay," she said eventually, but she already half hated herself for it.
Hermione knew she needed to tell her superiors about this, to come clean and start putting this mess right before it got out of hand. But then, she would be denied visitation, and for some reason, that was unacceptable.
"Thank you," Harry said softly, and Hermione couldn't help herself, she cried.
On her second allotted visit to see Sirius Black, Hermione dressed more casually. She'd gone with a pantsuit the first time, hoping it made her look older and more professional. This time almost all pretence was out the window. Not that he knew that but still. She wore dark jeans and a comfortable top and tried not to let her nerves show. It was easier said than done. Hermione kept imagining that at any moment, the guards would turn around and arrest her, before throwing her into one of the cells. It was hyperbolic, but the idea that she could be detained, stripped of her role and brought in front of an enquiry was not.
Hermione drew upon all of her experience to date and tried to appear normal as she set herself up for their second interview. She'd brought even more paperwork with her this time, and she had a prompt list tucked under a folio she had closest to her right arm.
He seemed more prepared to see her when he finally walked in, though he didn't look much better than he had before. Which, Hermione supposed wasn't really within his control.
"Hello again," he greeted her, and Hermione clenched her fingers into a first behind her back.
"Hello," she returned with a slight tremor she couldn't mask. "Thank you for agreeing to continue."
Mr Black scoffed and sat down, and Hermione followed. She fiddled with her pen for a moment before she steepled her fingers together leant forward.
Harry's parents, he murdered Harry's parents, her brain kept murmuring, and she looked down at her partially hidden sheet to get her mind back on the task in hand. In an hour, she could leave, she would have fulfilled her purpose, and she would never have to see him again.
"Mr Black," she began eventually and then decisively took the cap off her pen. "I had hoped that today we could discuss your case in detail. Would that be acceptable?"
Sirius eyed her intently, and Hermione did her best to meet his gaze. She couldn't let on that she knew any more than she should.
"Do you want the approved version or my account, my honest account?" he asked in a bored way before leaning back in his chair. Hermione considered his incredibly relaxed demeanour. It was mostly for show, but it was a reasonable effort. He was good at masking his feelings. Better than her in any case.
"I would like to hear your version if you are happy to share it."
Sirius Black told his story, or at least what he knew of it. It was riddled with holes that could have been put down to the time between events, his incarceration or even him not knowing certain things but the more he spoke, the more a plausible explanation for all of this began to build in her mind. One thing was for sure, his recollections did not match up with the government reasons for his arrest, and the crater that had been forming in Hermione's stomach tripled in size.
Hermione worried her bottom lip as she finished the last letter of her notes and she set down her pen and stretched her fingers. It was a technique she had used in interviews before. It gave people the impression she was 'off the record'. Of course, nothing was ever really unofficial, though, at that moment, her questions had moved far away from her original purpose.
"Did you ever give a statement at the time?" she queried, and he looked at the table surface refusing to meet her gaze.
"I signed a piece of paper," he replied without emotion. "But I didn't read it."
"Why?" She couldn't help but sound exasperated. She knew enough of him to see he was far too intelligent to have allowed something like that to happen.
Sirius' fingers gripped the edge of the table, and Hermione saw his knuckles turn white. "By then, there didn't seem to be much point."
Hermione nodded. There was nothing else she could say. "Thank you, Mr Black," she said mournfully. This was the end, in more ways than one.
Sirius tilted his head to the side as he regarded her and Hermione felt like she was being examined under a microscope.
"Sirius, please," he insisted. "It's been… It's been such a long time since someone called me that."
Hermione bit the side of her lip. There were no rules against it per se; in fact, a lot of modern psychology encouraged a more personal address. However, Hermione had never been keen. In her particular circumstances keeping to official addresses had reinforced boundaries that were important to both parties.
"Okay," Hermione agreed even as he mind screamed that it was a mistake. "Sirius," she said, testing out the unfamiliar name on her tongue. He smiled at her then, at least, she thought he did. It wasn't much, a simple and oh so brief quirk of his lips, but she was sure she had seen it.
It was time to go.
Hermione began pulling together the loose pages on the table and organising her stationary.
"You're really beautiful, you know?"
His voice made her eyes flick up to his, and Hermione's breath caught in her throat. She wanted to look away from him, but she couldn't.
"Too beautiful for a place like this."
Hermione had been working around incarcerated people for a long time, and it wasn't the first time someone had commented on her physical appearance. It was hard to take it seriously, most of them hadn't seen anyone but other inmates and guards for the longest possible time.
It felt genuine though. Hermione debated telling him about Harry, about everything, but she couldn't. Hope might just eat away and destroy whatever it was that was keeping him going.
"Will you be coming again?" he asked, and Hermione blinked slowly before shutting a file on the table.
"I'm afraid two meetings is all my clearance allows," she said apologetically, and Sirius nodded.
"A pity," he said eventually.
Despite the considerable weight on her shoulders, Hermione stood and picked up her bag. Sirius didn't look up at her though his body arched in her direction.
"I wish you well Sirius, please look after yourself," she managed before she pressed a button on the side of the wall and walked towards the door.
He didn't reply.
-/-/-/-
Hermione stood in the lurching lift surrounded by guards and haunted by grey eyes. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was leaving Sirius behind.
The official record of his crimes sat heavily in her bag as she left the building and though her throat constricted and her eyes burnt, she made it back to her flat before she lost control.
As soon as her front door was safely closed, Hermione slumped and sat in a heap on the floor.
When she got up, two hours later, she had decided what she had to do.
Hermione waited almost five days to talk to Harry, until their regular weekly breakfast meeting at a coffee shop a few roads out of the nice part of Westminster. Government workers, they may have been, snobs they were not. Maybe it was unreasonably paranoid for her to wait. Still, if this period in her life was ever put under scrutiny, Hermione didn't want anyone to discover any further ad hoc meetings between herself and Harry. No smoke without fire and all that rot. The routine of their breakfast arrangement gave them both plausible deniability, and if the dominoes fell where Hermione suspected they would, they would both need it soon.
Ron, their other closest friend from school, usually joined them, but he was at a conference in Frankfurt. Hermione could have done with his blunt, get shit done attitude right about then, but it was probably for the best. No one could try and incriminate him if he wasn't even around when it was all kicking off.
The greasy spoon had terrible service but good food, and it reminded them both of a simpler time when they had thought they were going to change the world before they knew what that meant.
Harry was already there when Hermione arrived, and when she, and her typically overstuffed work bag, sat down heavily in front of him, he offered her an anxious smile. If the widening of Harry's eyes were any indication, it was highly likely she looked just as shit as she felt.
"Hermione, I'm sorry," he blurted. "I should never have asked you to do this."
No, you shouldn't. But we both know I was going to do it whether you wanted me to or not.
"Harry," she tried to interject, feeling as old as the hills, but Harry wasn't listening.
"It was grossly unfair and..."
'Harry," Hermione said again, harder this time before pressing her fingers onto the mug of tea he had kindly bought for her. The scalding porcelain felt like it was hot enough to remove her fingerprints, which, given her current predicament, wouldn't have been the worst thing.
I could start again, another country, another government, Hermione thought to herself. Until I discover all the crap their keeping under the carpet and then I'm back to square one!
"I… saw him again, Sirius Black…" she rambled. "Why am I saying that? You know who I mean."
Hermione closed her eyes and counted to ten while she attempted to regulate her breathing. Harry, to his eternal credit, gave her the space to recover herself. It was hardly the first time he had seen her on the verge of a panic attack. They had sat for GCSEs and A-Levels together after all.
"I don't think he did it," she admitted at last. It was the first time Hermione had said the words out loud, and despite her conviction, she almost wanted to pull them back into her mouth and forget the whole thing. Almost.
A crash rang out from behind the counter. Justine had dropped another plate, but it didn't drown out the endless reverberating ripples from her declaration.
"What?" Harry whispered. He shook his head as if that would somehow clear everything up and tie it into a neat bow.
Hermione didn't know how to explain herself. She had nothing in the way of proof to back her claims, she just knew. It was an instinct honed by her experience. She didn't believe that Sirius Black was capable of committing the crimes he had been imprisoned for. Murder? Yes, he definitely had the capacity for it, but the murder of his closest friends? Hermione didn't believe so.
They were a lot alike in a strange way, they both hung tight to this idea of justice which was disgustingly ironic given he was in prison.
"I don't…" Hermione muttered. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and then broke off a piece of croissant. "I think he's innocent."
"How sure are you?"
Hermione swallowed. "How sure do you think I would have to be before I braved telling you this? I know how this impacts you personally, Harry. I'm as sure as I can be."
Harry slumped in his seat. His eyes scanned the room as if the answer to all their problems might be hanging on the wall.
"What the fuck do we do now?" he said at last. Hermione shrugged and then propped her head upon her hand.
"I have no fucking idea."
Hermione looked down at the hastily written instructions and checked the last three directions on the list before looking up at the house in front of her. Remote didn't even begin to describe this place. Hermione had been walking for the better part of an hour after she had got off her third bus, and she'd only seen five other homes in that time. The last one must have been miles before.
Though it was surrounded by what looked like vacant farmland, the small cottage itself was teeming with life. The land was ringed off by a low fence, and there seemed to be a well maintained front and back garden. It made Hermione feel slightly better. Keen gardeners were never usually violent, were they?
Hermione folded up the piece of paper and slipped it into her back pocket before giving herself a momentary talking to and then heading to the front door.
It took three attempts at knocking before the door opened, and even then it was just a slither. Inside the house looked dark in comparison to the bright sunshine outside, and Hermione struggled to make out the face of the person hiding behind the door.
"Read the sign," he gruffed, "no cold callers."
There was indeed a sign next to the door; however, the 'GO AWAY' scrawled in big letters wasn't exactly descriptive, though it did have an impact.
Hermione tried to make herself look kind and approachable, which was a hard thing to do outside of her usual sessions. "I understand your hesitation, Mr Lupin," she said in her politest voice. "But I'm not a cold caller, nor am I selling anything. I'd just like to ask a few…"
"No surveys," he interjected and then moved as if he would retreat into the house and close the door. Acting on instinct, Hermione lurched forward and pushed her shoe in the way. She hoped he didn't decide to slam it anyway, as she was in no way strong enough to hold him off.
"Actually, I'm here to talk about Sirius Black."
There was silence, and it was so quiet out here in the middle of nowhere that Hermione could hear the birds that were squawking from the nearby hedgerows. She waited him out. She had already invaded his personal space as much as she was willing to. The next move would have to be his.
"You better come in," he replied with a sigh, and the door opened widely.
-/-/-/-
The inside of the cottage was much like the man who lived there, tidy and well put together though a little careworn in places, a bit out of date in others and not really in a fashionable, vintage kind of way.
"Who are you?" he asked as he led them through a cramped corridor and into a small sitting room. He gestured for her to take a seat, and Hermione dutifully did so. She didn't so much as blink when he chose to remain standing.
"My name is Hermione Granger, and I work for the Department of Corrections as a Psychologist."
His eyebrows rose to the top of his head. "And just what is a prominent Psychologist doing in my sitting room, uninvited."
He was blunt, she would give him that, but Hermione was hardly perturbed. It might even help them move this along quicker.
"As part of a recent study, I was given clearance to visit a number of inmates currently serving sentences all over the country. I have recently met with Sirius Black, the stu…"
"You've seen him!" Mr Lupin interjected, almost leaping forward with wild eyes.
"I… I have," Hermione confirmed nodding. "Twice, the last time was a few weeks ago."
"How… how is he?"
Mr Lupin sounded so sad Hermione wanted to reach out and pet his shoulder, but she held herself back. A person living like this, a virtual hermit, was hardly likely to be the recipient of a lot of human interaction. She would do well to let him lead.
"He was," Hermione began, thinking back to Sirius' penetrating eyes and fake relaxed demeanour. "I don't know what to say to best reassure you. I can't guess at how he compares to… before, but he seemed okay, as okay as you can be in that situation in any case."
Mr Lupin nodded and then dropped into the seat opposite her and put his head in his hands. Hermione allowed him to have a moment. "Shall I make us some tea?" she offered hopefully, and he managed to murmur his assent. When she came back to the room, he was staring out of the window.
"Chamomile," she said as she handed over the mug. "I hope it helps."
He accepted the cup and balanced it on his knees, Hermione made a face, worrying about him scalding himself, but he barely looked at her.
"Why have you come here?" he asked wearily, and Hermione tapped her foot against the carpet to release some of her nervous energy.
"I hope you'll forgive me," she replied, trying not to shred her lip with her teeth. "But I am not sure I have a complete answer for that."
He rubbed a hand over his eyes and then sat up again, finally turning away from the window. "Go on," he encouraged, and Hermione nodded, mentally running through her vague plans for this conversation.
"Firstly I should tell you that I… I don't believe Sirius Black murdered James and Lily Potter."
To her surprise, he scoffed. "Of course he's innocent. Sirius would no more have murdered James and Lily than he would have murdered me."
Realisation chewed at Hermione's stomach, and she closed her eyes. Shit, shit, shit.
"You're the other friend?" she asked, and his gaze narrowed. "A friend of mine remembered your name from a case file," she replied ambiguously. "Though he didn't know who you were. You were only mentioned once, as someone who had been interviewed at the time. We had very little detail to work on; most of the files have been heavily redacted."
"Figures," he mumbled derisively, and Hermione sat forward, putting her cup down on an over-laden coffee table.
"Why did you never say anything at the time?" she asked. She hoped she didn't sound too accusing, but then again, maybe he deserved it?
"At first, I believed it," he replied shortly as he crossed his arms over his chest. Hermione recognised the look he had on his face. It was the same one Sirius had when she had asked him about the past. Mournful and concentrated, as if the memories took work to bring to the surface.
"But then, as I swam out of the pound of grief and self-loathing I had fallen into, I began to realise the official version of events had to be wrong. Too many things didn't make sense. By that time, Sirius had already been inside for more than six months. I have never been allowed to visit because of our previous connection. So I did what was within my power to do, it was less than I should have done, I started to ask questions. Then things started happening."
"What things?"
Mr Lupin smiled wanly. "You may find this unbelievable, looking at me now, but I was once seen as something of a bright light, academically speaking. I was a professor at an elite university, the youngest in my department. I had a book deal, of all things, and I was releasing two research papers a year."
A dark shadow fell over Mr Lupin's face, and Hermione felt a chill move up her spine. "Then, my work started to get discredited, and then the university started receiving letters."
Hermione had no intention of pressing him more. She didn't need to know the particulars. She'd hoped coming here would give her a better understanding of what she was getting herself into. Sadly, she was correct.
"Your school year must have been incredibly successful," she commented, trying to move the conversation on. "Two government operatives, a professor and the Prime Minister no less."
"Three," Mr Lupin muttered. He had gone back to glancing out of the window. Hermione couldn't imagine what had transfixed him. She'd put money on her arrival being the only thing to happen out here for days.
"I'm sorry?" she asked, and he stiffened as if she had startled him.
"Three government operatives," he confirmed. "Lily, James and Sirius, they all started MI6 at the same time."
Hermione managed not to swear out loud, but it was a close thing. Just… fuck!
Mr Lupin seemed not to notice her sudden angst. He carried on sipping his tea as if nothing monumental had just happened.
"Work is harder to come by now," he said, gesturing towards the room at large as if to explain his circumstances. "I do a lot of things by correspondence."
Hermione took a swig of her drink and hoped it would drown out the scream that wanted to burst from her throat. If she suddenly started believing in fate, as Harry had conveniently done, maybe that could explain why she had been compelled to visit Remus Lupin. There was a strangely Dickensian narrative to coming to his home and being shown what her future could be like. Yet, Hermione knew that when she woke up tomorrow, her predicament wouldn't be solved by ordering a large turkey and giving Tiny Tim a gift.
"Why did you need to see me?" Mr Lupin asked eventually. He looked like he'd aged during their conversation and Hermione tried to feel bad for him, but she wasn't sure she quite managed it.
"I would give you testimony," he continued. "But I'm afraid it would be hardly worth the paper you printed it on."
"No, I…" Hermione started, trying to find the words to explain herself. "I needed to check, with people that knew them that I wasn't going mad before I…"
"Before you pursued it?" he offered, and Hermione nodded.
"You're a braver person than me," he said wistfully, and Hermione plastered on the most brittle smile of her life.
"So people tell me."
She reached into her purse and pulled out a card, hesitating only briefly before handing it over. Remus Lupin eyed it curiously before looking at her.
"It's a number for Harry James Potter," she explained without emotion. "I think you should reach out to him."
Hermione got to her feet without ceremony. She was strangely looking forward to the long walk back to civilisation; it would give her time to think.
The Flower Pot was a pub come bistro that Hermione frequently found herself in for a quiet after-work drink. It was never especially busy, the rest of the clientele kept to themselves, and it was the sort of place you could guarantee that no one would remember you arriving or leaving.
Pansy Parkinson was sat at the back of the main room, noisy tearing through an article in a competitor newspaper with a frown on her face.
"You made it then?" she said in lieu of greeting and Hermione waved over a waitress. She was going to need a drink to get through this and keep a civil tongue in her head.
"Sorry I'm late," she said as graciously as she could manage and sat down. It was only five minutes after all.
Pansy finally looked up from the paper and folded it neatly before tossing it aside.
"A favourite of yours?" Pansy asked derisively as she looked around at the sparse decor and sleepy patrons. "Why am I not surprised?"
Hermione tried not to roll her eyes. It had been a long time since she had willingly subjected herself to Pansy's company. They had been at school together, and while they could never have been described as friends, they often ran in the same circles now they were both grown up. They rubbed along together tolerably, for the most part, apart from the fact that Pansy was an unbearable snob and Hermione had a deep hatred for her chosen profession, even though she could concede Pansy was brilliant at it. She supposed that made her a hypocrite of this worse kind.
Hermione knew she was fucked just by arranging the meeting in the first place. But after going around and around with it in her head, she had finally given up. She had to admit that this was her best option.
"I think I have a story," she said after the waitress had delivered her wine and Pansy rolled her eyes.
"You think?" The why else would we be having a drink together? remained unsaid, largely because it was written all over Pansy's perfectly made up face.
Hermione bit her lip. "Sirius Black," she offered softly, and Pansy's eyes narrowed in thought.
"Why do I know that name?"
Hermione reached into her bag and handed over a slim stack of case files supplemented with her own notes with a heavy heart. She had put all of the documents into plain manilla files. The government logo embossed folios remained at home, mocking her from her desk.
As much as what she was doing was tearing at her, professionally speaking, Hermione also felt a pang of much more personal guilt. Her own notes were heavily reliant on information Sirius had given her on his history. He may have known she was interviewing him, but he hadn't consented to this. Hermione felt like she had violated his trust. The twinge in her chest felt all the worse for not knowing if she would ever be able to ask for his forgiveness.
Pansy opened the first of the files and skimmed through page after page of covertly copied government intel. It was scant, but it was there in black and white. Sirius Orion Black was convicted in 1993 of killing James Potter, Lily Potter and then Peter Pettigrew as well as a group of unsuspecting innocent bystanders. After Harry had given her Remus Lupin's name, the near recluse had helped her piece together more of their history.
Hermione had tried to keep Harry away from it, though she had told him she was meeting with a journalist. He'd asked to come today, but Hermione had refused. She was already in it up to her neck; there was no reason for them both to take a fall.
Pansy sipped her wine and ripped through the pages hungrily.
"I've met him, and I think he's innocent," Hermione declared, and Pansy stared her down incredulously.
"Innocent men go to jail all the time Hermione," she replied with a shrug. "I'm sure that eats at your social-justice loving heart, but it doesn't make it national news."
"It does," Hermione began, and she didn't wince when Pansy tried to protest. "When nearly everyone involved works for the government in some respect."
Pansy clucked her tongue but otherwise didn't respond. She kept turning pages until she got to the last stapled stack. Hermione knew what she would find there.
"Potter's parents?" she asked disbelievingly. It was the most aghast Hermione had ever seen her look.
Hermione's fingers bit into the edge of the table. "Harry has nothing to do with this," she insisted firmly.
"If you say so," Pansy scoffed ." You always were determined to be a martyr, Granger, who am I to stand in your way."
Hermione hated that she didn't have a retort; you always had to have a response with Pansy. If you didn't knock her off her perch now and again, she came back to hit you twice as strong.
"I am assuming you would like your name kept out of this?"
"I would prefer it," Hermione confirmed. "Though I imagine that won't help me at the office."
"Probably not," Pansy agreed dispassionately. "Evidence or need I ask?"
"Nothing," Hermione replied.
"Of course."
Hermione shrugged. "It would hardly be good journalism if I gave you everything."
Pansy rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored the barb. "What's in this for me?"
Hermione sighed. "A pretty big scoop if I'm right, and you know me, I usually am. He's been locked up for an indefinite term; already twelve years served in maximum security. I can't find any information that would suggest the case ever went to trial."
"Wow," Pansy said shortly. For her, the one word was equivalent to a gasp of surprise from anyone else. Hermione could feel that she was interested and that she wanted to run with it; she just needed one more little push.
"He's from a well to do family. There is more than just dry as bones political corruption here. The human interest factor would be off the charts."
Hermione felt nauseous 'selling' the case like that as if she were pitching the premise for a Lifetime movie, but she was too far gone to pull back now. Even newspapers had their uses and Pansy was the only journalist Hermione trusted even a little bit. If she wasn't interested in getting to the bottom of it, Hermione wouldn't know where to go next.
After a second look through all of the pages, Pansy suddenly stood, shuffling the documents and stuffing them back into the stretched out file.
"Well I would say it's been a pleasure, but you would know I don't mean it."
"Quite," Hermione replied.
"I'll look into it," she Pansy said. "No promises."
Then she got some sunglasses out of her bag and pushed them onto her face, despite the fact they hadn't had a sunny day for over a week.
Hermione waited until she left and then ordered herself another glass of wine.
It took three months for Pansy to weave her own very particular brand of magic. Three months where Hermione did her job, paid her bills and tried to behave as if all was well. As if she hadn't handed copies of secure government case files to a journalist. Secure government case files that she was probably the only one to have accessed - save the Prime Minister - for some years.
A little voice in her head whispered from time to time that she could have attempted to handle it internally. She could have gone to her boss with her concerns. Hermione was jaded enough already to know that it wouldn't have gone anywhere. All roads would have put her right where she was now, whatever happened. It didn't make Hermione feel any better.
The morning the paper arrived with details of Sirius' case splashed all over the front page, Hermione took an extra long shower and then read every word. Peter Pettigrew was, according to Pansy, a treasonous opportunist who had blown his friends' cover in exchange for cash. That cash had been parlayed into drugs and weaponry, as favours to his other friends, ones all in the wrong places. Pansy had been intelligent enough to never accuse the British Government of knowing this. Though she did postulate that the MoD had wanted the whole thing shut down, and that that directive resulted in no trial for Sirius and the prospect of a lifetime in prison.
Somehow, and who knew by what means, Pansy had found the supposedly dead Pettigrew, living out on some rural farm in the US breeding rats. As proof of innocent went, an alive 'murder victim' made for pretty strong grounds for appeal.
Hermione read the whole thing twice over and then put the newspaper in her bread bin so she wouldn't have to look at it. She was glad she hadn't attempted breakfast.
-/-/-/-
The story made the six o'clock news.
Hermione went back to picking a new subject #4 but then skipped it and went onto #5. She couldn't face the thought of an interview, not just yet, but she did all the preliminary work.
A few weeks later, Hermione was sitting in a formal boardroom at work, with her on one side and no less than fifteen of Her Majesty's greatest bureaucrats sitting opposite. She had never felt smaller. They'd been at it for an hour, and at this point, Hermione wasn't sure what else they wanted her to say. She'd already admitted to handing over the files.
"I understand your intentions were probably honourable," her boss said, once again trying to temper the last outburst from the seething minister sitting next to him. "But this represents a significant security breach, and it is something we cannot ignore."
After multiple attempts to accuse her of far worse, Hermione was relieved that she would only be held accountable for her actions and not some insane dreamed up version of events where she was supposedly a spy in collision with a foreign superpower.
"I understand, Sir," Hermione said as clearly as she could. The weight of his disappointment fell harshly on her shoulders, and she hoped she would have become numb to it by the time she had to attempt to leave the room.
In the end, Hermione opted to take 'voluntary' redundancy as opposed to facing a full internal enquiry, and she was forced to send out a disgustingly cheery internal memo about 'new horizons' and the 'next chapter of her life'.
She left with her remaining things in a box an hour later. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, she'd been quietly taking home a lot of her accumulated possessions over the last few weeks.
Hermione took a final look around as she approached the lift and sighed. It was time to find a new dream.
Hermione stood in the middle of her study and eyed her groaning bookshelves. Almost every conceivable surface was covered with either a book or research papers, and now it was all useless.
Hermione dug into her handbag and found the key she'd barely had a call to use before. She stepped out and locked the door, and immediately her life felt a little darker.
For now, she told herself, for now.
Harry showed up three nights later. Hermione was tremendously relieved that she was not in pyjamas or drunk. It had been a rough week.
"Did you hear?" he exclaimed before he had even got fully through the door which Hermione moved to close behind him.
She found him in her kitchen, rocking in a chair and grinning so widely he looked like baby James.
"It's Sirius," he said. "He's getting out, his record is being cleared, and they're going to look into damages."
Hermione lowered herself into a chair and fiddled with her bracelet. It was done then.
"Did you… did you do this?" Harry asked in awe and Hermione grimaced.
No, I was just the ignition strip. Burnt out and thrown away after it had completed its use.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You should speak to Pansy, she did a great job, I thought."
Harry managed almost wholly to suppress a glimmer of distaste, and then it was back to a coat hanger smile again.
"I have no idea how she managed it, and you know she'll never reveal her sources."
Despite herself, Hermione grinned. Harry's enthusiasm was contagious, and when he was in a good mood, there was almost no one on earth she would rather be around. He would have more family after this. A chance to have another person in his life, she couldn't begrudge his joy.
"Dinner soon?" he asked hopefully. "Just me and you? We haven't done that in forever, and we need to celebrate."
Hermione agreed happily, if not readily. She had missed Harry over the last few months. She hadn't quite realised until then just how much time they spent together. Suddenly reducing their interactions to a breakfast once a week and the occasional dinner had been tougher than Hermione had expected.
Harry charged out of the house as quickly as he came in. Thankfully he closed the door behind himself this time. Hermione stared at the wall for five whole seconds before she dropped her head to the table.
"Ow. Just… fuck that hurt."
She nearly said 'at least it's not raining', but knowing how this week was going Hermione was half sure a great gaping hole might appear in her roof, so she kept her mouth firmly shut.
The restaurant Harry had booked was a good deal fancier than Hermione was used to, and she was grateful that her friend had said he would pay, as a treat. It seemed silly to eat into her savings - literally - for something so frivolous, especially when she had no idea when she would be able to replenish the funds.
Hermione was unsurprisingly the first to arrive, and an overzealous waiter took her back to a private room. Thankfully, it was a little less opulent than Hermione had feared, so she knew she would be able to get through the dinner without worrying she was noticeably out of place. She had never eaten in a private room for just two people before, though she had to admit she rather liked it. Hermione wondered whether Harry still felt like they needed to be cautious, only when the door opened again it wasn't Harry that walked in.
Not two minutes after Hermione had put her bag down on the floor, Sirius Black filled the archway to the quiet dining area. It was a wonder she recognised him. He'd been a free man for two weeks, or so she understood from Harry's almost hourly updates. He had stayed at the Potter's for a few nights and since then had moved in with Remus Lupin for a while, the last she heard he was looking to get his own place, closer to London. Hermione had wondered at his almost immediate desire for solitude, but re-emerging into society was no easy thing, and a house full of tiny Potters was no joke.
He still looked on the thin side, but his cheeks had lost that hollow look where a person's face would instantly remind you of the skeleton that laid beneath. Hair that a few months before had been dank and lifeless hung artfully around his shoulders. It was still as dark as it had been before, and so few people had completely black hair it made him all the more striking. Hermione wondered how he had worn it when he was younger.
The grey eyes were still the same, and they were just as piercing as ever.
"Hello, Sirius," she greeted as kindly as she could through her bemusement. She stood, swinging her legs out from under the table and reached out her hand.
Sirius looked down at it for a moment and then picked it up between both of his own and pressed a short kiss across her fingers.
"Hello Hermione, can I call you that?"
Hermione felt her heart in her throat as the heat from his lips seemed to climb from her hand to her chest and cheeks. "Yes, yes you can," she said eventually and then sat back down for fear of making an idiot of herself.
Sirius took off his immaculate peacoat and hung it on a peg behind them. When he sat down, Hermione was filled with a deja vu from another dimension. They were sat across from each other, again, but this time there was no rickety table or paperwork between them. The walls weren't grey. There were no chains.
Everything here was clean, bright and new.
The one thing that hadn't changed was the power dynamic. It had always been something Hermione had to be conscious of in her line of work. She had to make sure that inmates never tried to dominate her, and at the same time, she undertook that she would not do so either, less it hindered their trust. Strange as it was, given their circumstances, Hermione had felt equal with Sirius from their first meeting, and she felt the same feeling now. He was hesitant like he had been before, but Hermione supposed he had reason to be.
"I hope you don't mind me taking over your dinner with Harry," he said as he idly flicked through a leather-bound menu in front of him. "He said he was meeting you and I… I asked if I might get some of your time."
Hermione didn't know what to say. Her tongue felt stuck to the top of her mouth, and so she nodded. Sirius must have sensed her predicament, and he reached over to the side of the table and poured her a large glass of water before pressing it into her fingers. The mirroring of the action wasn't lost on her, and Hermione squeezed his hand in gratitude before she could stop herself.
"Is that better?" Sirius asked after Hermione had taken a long swig and she delicately wiped a finger across her lips.
"Yes, thank you," she replied before setting the glass back down. "I suppose I'm just a bit surprised and… maybe… overwhelmed."
When the waiter came back in then to take their orders, and Hermione almost sighed. It wasn't as if she was afraid to be alone in the room with Sirius, but at the same time, she felt vulnerable in a way she hadn't before. Hermione had spent her personal and professional life striving for greatness and never letting her guard down apart from with a few choice individuals. Even with people she knew as well as Harry, Ron and Ginny, she tempered herself. That didn't feel possible sitting across from Sirius. One look from him and Hermione felt like she was cleaving open, ready to bare her soul and share all of her darkest secrets. She felt so exposed it was as if the emotion was radiating from her pores. Yet, at the same time, she knew somehow that he would treat her kindly, which was almost as scary as the alternative. There would be nowhere to hide with a kind man that knew all of her secrets.
The waiter bustled away again and left the door open, but Hermione couldn't think of a single thing to say to ease the silence. Instead, she focused on Sirius' shirt. It was a dark burgundy colour, and he had pushed the cuffs up to his elbows so she could see the sinewy expanse of his forearms. It was unbuttoned down to the centre of his chest which revealed a few more tattoos that he had hidden. His long hair grazed along his collar, and Hermione thought she could see a few vague hints that he was wearing a long chain underneath.
She took a deep breath as the waiter came in again with a tray and their drinks. Sirius must have given the nod to turn their wine order into a bottle and Hermione was grateful though she had no recollection of him saying anything about it.
Eventually, the waiter made some speech about their meals, Hermione barely heard about their 'excellent selections' and how long the food would be before he disappeared, shutting the door behind him this time.
Sirius topped up the wine from the measly measures the waiter had poured and then clinked their glasses together.
"I suppose if we are going to have dinner together, we should try having some conversation," he said, not unkindly, and Hermione took a large sip of her drink.
"I erm… I think we should," she replied. The you start lingered underneath her words as her trepidation was evident.
Sirius pulled his seat forward and reached over the table to move the large floral arrangement that was in the centre to the side.
Nowhere to hide.
"I've thought a lot about.. what to say to you," Sirius said as he regarded her intently. "I've written speeches in my mind that must go on for pages but I… just… thank you. That's really what I want to say, thank you."
Hermione assumed she was destined to be a weeping bucket in front of this man for the rest of time, though he hadn't seen that from her before. Sirius had only been there two minutes, and Hermione could already feel her eyes beginning to mist.
"I don't want you to be deceived," she asserted as she pushed her long curls back off her shoulders, so they fell down her back. "I really didn't do anything. Pansy is the one who…"
"I've spoken to Pansy," Sirius interjected unexpectedly. "She was… a lot less reluctant than you to take credit."
Hermione grinned. "She's rather annoyingly wonderful like that isn't she? Don't get me wrong, me and her are not close or anything, most of the time I think she's one of the worst people I've ever met, but there is something about her honesty that's so…"
"Refreshing?" Sirius offered with a raised brow, and Hermione agreed. "I liked her."
"I'm glad. She did an amazing job."
"She did," Sirius concurred, "but that's just it Hermione, she did her job, you, on the other hand, you must see what you contributed to this?"
Hermione shrugged and fiddled with the impossibly delicate stem of her wine glass. "I'm only a Psychologist, Sirius."
"Well, forgive my language, but you must be a fucking good one," he said, sounding harsher than she had ever heard him. "Probably the best I've ever met. You were the only one who believed what I had to say, and I understand from Harry you spend enough time around people like me to hear the innocent defence a fair bit."
"Not around people like you," Hermione countered softly. "You aren't like them."
"I could have been," he replied darkly, and Hermione watched his face contort. "I… I didn't have a very good start in life. There was a lot of rage in me as a young man, still is, probably. I don't… I don't want you to think that I'm…"
"I understand, Sirius."
"You do?"
"I think so," Hermione confirmed as she crossed an arm over her body.
The first course arrived, and it looked every bit as lovely as the waiter was saying it would be. Hermione hoped she could eat it.
"You lost your job?" Sirius said, it was a statement not a question, and Hermione's heart sank.
"Does Harry know?"
"Not yet. I hope it will all be sorted before Harry has a chance to find out. I've only met him four times, as an adult, and it's already pretty clear he has a considerable guilt complex."
Hermione could agree with that. "I thought I was the shrink?"
Sirius smiled, it spread across his face like an early autumn sunrise and Hermione nearly bit through her tongue as she chewed.
"I've had a meeting with Kingsley," Sirius divulged, clearly watching for her reaction. "When we finished, I asked if he could direct me to your department, what followed was a rather stammering account of why you weren't there."
"I can imagine," Hermione replied. Though she couldn't, not really, she wasn't sure she had ever seen Kingsley Shacklebolt unnerved.
"The government is quite keen to get back in my good graces," Sirius said with a corresponding stab of his fork. There was no need for Hermione to ask what his current thoughts were on the people running the country.
"With the red tops and the broadsheets clambering to get an interview, I've agreed to limit what I will reveal if they agree to certain stipulations of my own. The first of which is that I've asked for you to be reinstated."
Hermione's fork clattered to the table, and she winced when she saw the red sauce that she had been devouring splattered all over the table cloth that probably cost more than her entire linen collection.
"Sirius," she said, but she didn't know what else to say. A single tear dropped down her cheek before her overworked eyelids could stop it. She felt so stupid. This situation hadn't precisely endeared positive feelings towards her former employer and yet, how could she help at all if she was now on the outside?
Sirius pushed back his chair and threw his napkin next to his plate. Hermione couldn't work out what was going on, and then suddenly he was next to her, kneeling beside her chair. His eyes stared up at her pleadingly, and Hermione felt another of those cracks appear inside of herself, the ones that would let all of her darkness out.
Both of his hands cradled her face as one of his warm, calloused thumbs wiped her tear away. The impossibly soft gesture caused three more to fall, and he removed them just as gently.
"I shouldn't have interfered," he admonished himself, "not before I had spoken to you."
"It's not that," Hermione said. "Thank you."
She'd never meant the words more.
She wasn't exactly dry-eyed now, but the tears had stopped leaking from her eyes unchecked, and yet Sirius remained on his knees by her side.
"You're really beautiful, you know," he whispered. "Too beautiful for a place like this."
Hermione looked up at the art deco chandelier, and the black and gold lined walls and let out a wet chuckle even as she flushed. One of his hands fell from her heated cheeks and then gripped her hand that was prone on her lap.
"Can I take you to dinner?" he asked with an urgency she wasn't expecting as if he was fixing to drag her from the room.
"Sirius, we're at dinner."
"A proper one," he countered. "One where I don't feel like I've ambushed you into accepting my company?"
"I…"
He squeezed her hand and then got back up to his feet. Hermione felt bereft and then elated as he picked up his chair and moved it closer to hers, dragging around his plate and drink.
"Do you mind if I…?" he started belatedly. "It just… it feels nice, to be close to you."
"Yes," Hermione managed to affirm before she did her best to resume eating her dinner as if she couldn't almost detect the heat of his thigh under the table.
"I thought about you.. after you left for the first time," he admitted. "Before I ever thought I would get out. I hated you at first."
Hermione nearly choked on her food and Sirius' eyes widened, and he moved to help her, but she held him back with a single hand before she managed to swallow.
"It's okay," she managed to stutter out roughly. "Please continue."
He looked unsure for a moment, so Hermione pressed. "I would like to hear your honest thoughts if you are happy to share them?"
Sirius stared at her before he finally nodded and Hermione pushed her plate away, not wanting to risk any more disasters.
"I think I was as close as I could have been to accepting my fate, and then you appeared. You smelt so good and looked so perfect… I'm not sure I can explain it. You made the air around you cleaner like you snuffed out the poison that was in that place just by existing."
"By the time you came back a second time, I had halfway convinced myself I imagined it, my reaction to you. Then you were there with this pretty pink top on, looking so much more real and full of life. If anything, my reaction was stronger. Then you said my name, so hesitantly, but it… it sounded so lovely coming from your lips. It reminded me of who I was before... all of this. Before I started blaming myself for everything."
"I'm not an angel of mercy, Sirius," Hermione protested softly. "I'm a real person, with faults and excentricities just like the rest. Neither of us will benefit from you thinking of me in such a way."
"I'm not delusional," Sirius bit out looking affronted, but only a moment later he seemed to calm. "I know who you are."
"We've barely spent any time together."
"And yet, wouldn't you say you feel like you know me too?"
Hermione didn't respond to the challenge, but she averted her eyes, which was answer enough.
"I've known women like you before, Hermione Granger. The good ones, the challenging kind, the 'break a few eggs to make a good omelette' kind. I steered clear when I was younger because I told myself that wasn't the right fit. That they were too much work and I wasn't good enough. But when I was in my cell, and I thought you were gone forever, I said to myself if I ever had my chance to do it again, I would do something about it."
"It was an easy promise to make. I was sat in a cell with no chance of escape. There was no one telling me to do it. But I'm here now."
Sirius raised a hand from the table and then hesitantly placed it over hers. His palm was large, warm and reassuring.
"I know you don't know much about me - not specifics in any case - and what you do know isn't favourable, but I would like a chance to change that if you'll let me?"
"Because you think you owe me?" Hermione asked quietly, and Sirius' head snapped towards her.
"No," he protested hotly. "If it was just that I would have cut you a cheque. This is different."
"Loyalty," he said as if weighing the word in his mouth. "It was once something I held very dear. It has value. You have mine now, and you have me, for whatever you want."
More tears fell from Hermione's eyes, and she coughed a little to try to hide the fact that she felt shredded on the inside. She wasn't sure she was worthy of this. But she wanted it all the same.
"So will you let me take you for dinner? We can go somewhere ridiculously expensive, and you can throw forks all over the tables until the carpets are red and mottled. We'll find a room worthy enough to hold your presence and eat and drink for too much. The government is paying after all."
"Yes, I'd like that," Hermione agreed easily and then took a breath and sorted her face out.
Sirius grinned a full smile that seemed to overtake his whole face. His spine seemed to relax, and in turn, Hermione felt like she could function easier even as her heart began to race.
"You're quite devastating, you know, when you smile like that," she admitted, and Sirius' eyes twinkled in response. There was a hint of long-dormant mischief there that should have worried her, but it was too late for that.
"I'd been told, a long time ago," he said. "It's gratifying to know it works on you though."
Their meal over, Hermione made to stand up so she could use the bathroom before they left. She never got fully out of her seat. His arm jutted out, halting her progress as she hoovered in thin air.
"Sorry," he said, sounding weary and embarrassed. "Would you mind sitting back down?"
Hermione slowly retook her seat and then anxiously laid her palm against his upper arm. "Sirius, is everything okay?"
He sucked in a deep breath and then looked at her, faintly smiling when he saw her hand on him. "This is going to sound weird, or maybe not, given your profession, but would you mind letting me get up from the table first?"
"If that's what you need," Hermione said patiently.
"Thank you I… watching you walk away from the table… It's a bit… it's like when we were back there… it makes me feel panic."
"Why don't we stand together?" Hermione offered, and he seemed to mull it over briefly before nodding his head.
"Yes, that would… that would work."
When they got to their feet, Hermione grabbed her coat, and Sirius held it out for her so she could put it on.
When they went to leave the room, he reached out to clutch her hand. "This okay?"
"Yes, I think it's good," Hermione replied. "I think it's really good."