Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)

Charms with Professor Amber - Task 2: Write about someone getting someone else into trouble, whether deliberately or by accident.

Word count: 2131

Have You Never Broken a Single Rule?

'Hermione, Harry and Mr Black are here,' Mrs Granger called up the stairs.

Sirius? Why was he here? She thought Lily was coming to get her. 'I'll be down in a minute,' she called back, throwing the last of her school books into her trunk.

Taking a look around her bedroom to see if she hadn't forgotten anything, knowing she wouldn't see it now until Christmas, she slammed the trunk shut. She hiked it up so she could start pulling the trunk down the stairs.

'Let me,' Sirius said when she reached the top of the stairs, him at the bottom, pulling his wand out.

'No,' she said quickly, holding a hand up to him, 'you know the Trace will think it's me doing it in this house.' Hermione knew as soon as she said it, it was the wrong thing. A smirk lit up his features, making him look like a teen for a split second. 'Where's Harry, he can help me.'

'With your parents- they're checking on his teeth for some reason.' Sirius peered into the living room, still remaining at the bottom of the stairs, Hermione at the top. Then he looked back to her, his eyes lit up with the promise of trouble. 'Have you never broken a single rule, Hermione?'

'Why would I do that?' she asked huffily, struggling to keep the trunk stood up now. 'Are you going to help me- the Muggle way- or not?'

Sirius clasped his hands behind his back, not putting his wand away. It remained firmly in his hand. 'Not even a warning?'

'You know very well I haven't.'

'You'll be seventeen in less than two months, how can you have gone this long without one rule broken? I've seen the pranks you can pull, Hermione Granger.' She narrowed her eyes at him which made him chuckle. 'Harry and Ron have had one each, and they live in magical households, so you know how hard they must have worked to get their warnings,' he said casually.

'Sirius Black, don't you-'

It was barely a shift in his movement, the tiniest of flicks of his wand behind his back. Hermione gasped when the trunk was pulled out of her hands, starting to slide away. It didn't crash down the stairs as she'd been expecting, but glided gracefully, settling gently by Sirius' feet.

There was an expectant silence as Hermione glared at the man who was smiling sweetly at her.

'Everything alright?' Harry asked, stepping into the hallway by the front door. He stretched his jaw out while rubbing it, looking between Hermione and Sirius. 'What did you do?' he groaned at his godfather.

The answer was a loud tap at the living room window, followed by Hermione's mother telling her she had an owl.

Hermione stood in the living room with Harry and Sirius by the door leading to the stairs, and her parents reading the letter with her over her shoulder.

'Oh, Hermione,' Mr Granger said in disappointment.

'Just because you're so close to being able to perform magic outside of school, doesn't mean you can cheat time,' Mrs Granger added.

'Well,' Sirius started but got an elbow to his ribs off Harry.

Hermione continued the death stare to Sirius, taking her parents' disappointment without argument. That man was going to rue the day he'd stepped into this household.

XXXXXX

The majority of the summer was spent with Harry and his family at Godric's Hollow. Sirius, Remus, and Peter would visit once a week for dinner and a game of Quidditch.

As the weeks went on, Hermione wouldn't have a proper conversation with Sirius. Whenever he tried to strike one up with her, as he did love to argue with her, she'd give him a sweet smile and silently walk away.

'Have you even apologised?' Remus asked her after the fourth week of watching this behaviour.

'It was a warning,' Sirius grumbled, 'not like she got expelled or anything.' He rubbed at his unshaven cheek. 'Well she'll have to talk to me soon, they're coming to stay with me for the last week of the holidays. She's too polite not to.'

'If I were you, I'd be nervous. I've seen what she does when anyone crosses her. Draco Malfoy still has the faint scar from her punch when he tried to kiss her last year.'

As if she knew they were discussing her, Hermione looked up from her book, sitting in the corner of the living room, cup of tea in hand. She gave Sirius another sweet smile, Remus a more genuine one, and returned her attention to her book.

When it came to dinner, Remus' words had lingered in Sirius' mind, and when he found himself sat next to Hermione, his usual place at these dinners, he had gotten a little nervous being near the witch. She reached past him for the jug of pumpkin juice and he scraped his chair back quickly. Hermione gave him a small frown with that sweet smile she'd been giving him since she'd arrived here at the start of the summer.

Try as he might, Sirius couldn't get a conversation out of Hermione like he usually would, and thought that Remus was definitely right, he was going to have to apologise. Glancing across the table at Lily, who was giving him a murderous look, an expression she had taken to giving him after finding out what he'd done, nodded at Hermione.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Sirius turned to Hermione, who looked at him expectantly, a hard glint in her brown eyes. 'Hermione, sweetness, I'm awfully sorry…' he trailed off when her lips went into a thin line. 'What did I do now? I was apologising!'

'Call me sweetness one more time and it won't be an apology you need to give me,' she warned. The whole table became silent, even Daisy Potter, Harry's twelve year old sister, could read the room.

'Okay,' he said thoughtfully, sitting back in his chair.

'Oh no,' James muttered, keeping his head down to his meal.

'What about sweetheart- no? Not sweetheart?' Sirius grinned at the danger flashing in Hermione's eyes. Finally, he was getting something out of her. 'Cupcake- no, you're right, you're not a confectionary type.'

There was a sudden scraping of chairs, plates were picked up, food bowls were charmed to leave with the people, and everyone left the table except Sirius and Hermione, all of them disappearing into the garden.

Sirius laughed at how tightly Hermione was gripping her fork, certain that if he wasn't quick enough, it might end up in his hand. 'Princess- oof!' She hadn't bothered with the fork, instead opting to give him a hard shove with her fist in his ribs. 'Easy now,' he laughed loudly.

Hermione stood up quickly, Sirius reacted by pushing back from the table, almost skating across the kitchen as he did. Hermione gave him that sweet smile again, the change in expression scary. 'You're awfully nervous, Sirius,' she commented before taking her plate and fork to the garden, ignoring all the questioning looks she was getting from everyone as she walked to a quiet corner.

XXXXXX

Sirius stood at the front door of Grimmauld Place, greeting his godchildren, Harry and Daisy, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Lily and James, and finally, Hermione. She huffed past him without so much as a glance, and went straight up the stairs, to his library no doubt. Sirius looked to James and Lily with a frown. 'Still?'

'And don't expect her to thank you for the stay either,' Lily warned, 'she's convinced you hate her, otherwise why else would you do something as stupid as getting her into trouble with the Ministry.'

'Even we're not that stupid,' Ron agreed before disappearing to the kitchen.

Sirius quietly shut the door, scratching at his cheek, looking up the stairs. He'd annoyed Hermione before, but had never faced consequences like this. And that was including the time he'd managed to charm a tattoo onto her forearm that took a month to come off. Usually she'd repaid him in kind, but she'd been very quiet on the revenge front.

He'd always known she was a stickler for the rules, but she was the brightest witch of her age. Hogwarts knew it, the Ministry knew it, the whole magical community knew it, so there's no way they would've done anything more than give her a warning. Surely she knew that.

XXXXXX

On the final night before Hermione went back to Hogwarts for her sixth year, Sirius decided to try a bit harder to apologise to her. She was sat in the library with the new Arithmancy book she'd picked up that day, Ginny on the couch with her. It was only when Ginny suddenly got up that Hermione lifted her head to see Sirius stood before her with a solemn look.

'Ginny, where are you going?' Hermione called after her.

'As far away from you two as possible,' she said, now running out of the library.

Hermione snapped her book shut. Sirius held his hands up defensively.

'I've come to apologise,' he said, gingerly sitting at the other end of the long couch. Almost on the arm of it. Enough space between them that he couldn't receive a stray fist. Or a book in the face.

'Okay.' She folded her arms, shifting in the seat to face him, her back against the other arm of the couch. 'Apologise then.'

'Right. Yes.' He rubbed the palms of his hands on the dark pants he was wearing. 'Well, I'm…you see…' He coughed drily.

'You don't know how to apologise, do you?' she said indignantly, standing up.

'Look. I'm sorry. I am,' he added the latter quickly when she started to walk away. 'I thought you would see the funny side of it in the end.'

'Right,' she said, not sounding convinced of his apology, hugging her book to her chest.

The stare she was giving him made him feel like she was reading every thought and memory he'd ever had. He shifted his eyes down to his hands for a moment, trying to focus on the apology. Finally he looked back to her. 'Will you forgive a silly man-child for an error in judgement?'

She sighed. 'I'll sleep on it,' she said, leaving the room without another word.

Sirius frowned, not sure what else he could do now. He'd never backed down before, did Hermione not realise that?

XXXXXX

The next morning, Mr and Mrs Weasley arrived to take them to King's Cross in Mr Weasley's brand new car, that might have had a charm or two placed on it, judging by the room the entire thing had. One by one, their trunks were placed into the extremely spacious boot, and then they started to say goodbye to Sirius, Remus, James, and Peter, as Lily was going with them to see them off.

When it came to Hermione and Sirius saying goodbye to each other, she gave him a firm look as she said, 'I forgive you.'

Sirius grinned, his arms open for her to step into a tight hug.

'Do something like that again and they won't find the body,' she warned, her smile, as she stepped back, saying she didn't mean the threat. Not really.

Once they'd waved the car off, the group of Marauders stepped back into Grimmauld Place. Sirius, going in last, closed the front door and froze. The three men halfway down the hallway all froze too as they watched the walls change from pale grey to a dark green- Slytherin Green. The doorframes and handrail to the stairs lost their light gold colour in favour of silver. And to top it off, the Slytherin emblem appeared on the wooden floors, burnt into the grain.

The front door opened. They silently turned to see Hermione's head peer around the edge of the door. 'You didn't think an apology would be enough, did you?' She stepped in properly, her hands clasped behind her back.

'What did you do?' Sirius cried, looking around at the colours.

'You'll find every room much the same,' she said, giving him that sweet smile. 'It took me all summer…with a little help.' Remus let out a cough before disappearing into the kitchen.

Sirius pushed the door to the living room open and groaned at the colour scheme.

'You should know,' she glanced around the hallway, 'you're going to need to say a specific phrase before this will all revert back.' She gave them all a little wave with a wicked grin. 'Good luck finding it,' she said as she left them once more.

Sirius spun round to James and Peter, his face lit up with a wide smile. 'I'm going to marry that witch one day!'