Wedlocked
Chapter 16: Friday Night

She took a deep breath, gripped his arm and waited for it to be over. The barely audible 'pop' came to her ears and she felt the uncomfortable squeezing sensation before another 'pop' signalled their arrival.

"Let's go quickly," he said, still keeping his wand at the ready and a hand hovering inches from her back. Hermione hurried up the steps and into Number 12, Grimmauld Place flanked by Remus and Tonks. It felt like the secretive summer before fifth year all over again.

"Welcome back!" James cried as soon as the door shut behind them. "I've been waiting all week for you!"

"Thank you, but why?" she questioned.

James just grinned and let his eyes glitter with unrestrained glee.

"Is he all right?" she whispered to Remus.

"He's fine," the man assured her. "And even if he wasn't, he's a painting."

"Oi! I may be a painting but I can still hear you, Moony!" James sent a rude gesture at his old friend and stomped out of his frame.

"He's been like that all week," Sirius informed them with a sad shake of his head.

For all the consideration she had given this weekend, Hermione found herself incapable of thought, action or speech when presented with her husband. Sirius was leaning casually against the wall, doing nothing that should leave her so addlepated, yet her brain had stuttered to a stop, failing to send a message to her feet until Tonks bumped her forward ostensibly by accident.

"Dinner ready?" the woman asked eagerly.

Sirius smiled. "My infamous Drunken Shepherd's Pie is ready when you are."

An excited trilling escaped Tonks and she rushed past him to claim her seat at the table.

"You cooked?" Remus asked, disbelief and concern thick in his voice.

"Drunken Shepard's Pie is something even I can't cock up, Moony." Sirius shrugged, "Besides, Kreacher's been a bit off since the wedding." He offered no further information or verbal sympathy for the creature that had nearly killed him, but the fact that Sirius had even noticed a change in his servant, that he was cooking for himself rather than forcing the house-elf to do it when he was unwell spoke volumes to Hermione.

She followed Remus through to the kitchen and sat down in the only remaining chair, which happened to be situated very close to Sirius. She found the shrinking of the table and placement of the chairs highly suspect, but refused to start the weekend off on the wrong foot.

Sirius nudged her arm. "I told you," he whispered and nodded across the table.

She followed his subtle gesture, watching as Tonks edged her chair closer to a blushing Remus and her arm disappeared beneath the table to rest on the man's thigh. It was the first time Hermione had seen them interacting privately. She wondered if Tonks flirted with him so shamelessly at the wedding, too. Even as she watched, Remus turned to look at the woman beside him. They didn't say anything. Apparently, they didn't have to. Their eyes locked for several long seconds and Hermione knew they were in love. They were as different as was humanly possible; they might try to fight it with reason and numbers, but still they loved each other.

"A werewolf and a shape-shifter… can you imagine their children?" Sirius whispered against her ear, making her smile even as she shook her head. He cleared his throat loudly, breaking Tonks and Remus up before they started snogging at the dinner table. "So, Moony, how's the book coming?"

Remus tore his eyes away from the woman beside him and refocused his attention. "Slowly. Very slowly."

"Book?" Hermione asked.

"We've managed to talk good Professor Lupin here into writing a book on werewolves," Sirius said.

"Really?" she smiled. "That's brilliant! You wouldn't believe some of the rubbish they've published. I was in Flourish and Blotts over the summer and the number of properly useful books they have on lycanthropy was pitiful… but I suspect you would know that already."

Remus nodded and smiled in his usual mild and amused way. "I had noticed," he admitted. "It also makes the likelihood of getting published anything I might write pretty slim."

"Don't start that again," Sirius warned. "Same old arguments again and again. I'm rich, dammit. I'll buy a printing house if I have to."

"Show off," Hermione muttered, making Tonks and Remus laugh.

"Oi! No laughing at me in my own house! That was Rule Number Two."

Their laughter filled the kitchen, lifting the remainder of unease that still clung to Hermione's shoulders. He glowered at her, but she could tell it was an act.

"Lovely shepherd's pie," she commented.

"Oh, now you're just patronising me."

She gasped theatrically. "I would never dream of patronising a man like you!"

He sniffed and scowled, "Swot."

"Git."

"Cut it out, you two," Remus ordered.

Grinning, Hermione turned her attention back to her dinner, which really was lovely. She was no slouch in the kitchen provided she had a recipe to follow, but if this was any indication of the man's cooking prowess then she would gladly hand over the apron and spatula to him.

"Ooh," Tonks cried excitedly. "I just remembered. Hermione, has Ginny given you that belated wedding present yet?"

Her eyes grew enormous. She tried to force them to a reasonable, non-dear-in-headlamps size, but they remained huge. How she wished she could send her thoughts across the table to the woman, tell her to stop talking about such things. The last thing she wanted was for Sirius to know about the ridiculous under-things she had no intention of wearing.

"Present?" Sirius asked.

Tonks nodded. "Well, I helped her pick it out and bought you something to go with it. I'll give it to you later."

Sirius frowned and looked between the two female diners, perhaps thinking that if he studied their faces long enough more information might spontaneously appear before him. "What present?"

"Nothing," they said together.

"It's clearly something," he said. "What is it? Why am I not involved?"

"Maybe because you're acting like an infant," Tonks offered.

"Am not."

The woman responded by making her nose into a snout and sticking her tongue out at him.

Light-hearted as the argument that followed was, Hermione's mood darkened again and she lost her appetite. All she could do for the rest of dinner was push the remainder of the pie around her plate. If they noticed, no one chose to say anything.

"Tea?" Remus asked.

"I'll have some," Tonks said. "Leave it in the pot for me, I'm going to take Hermione upstairs for just a minute." She hurried around the table, grabbed the girl and ran from the kitchen before either of the men might protest. She spirited Hermione up the stairs and into the girl's bedroom, locking, warding and silencing the door before rounding on her. "Presents!"

Tonks climbed under the bed to pull out a shopping bag identical to the one Ginny had given her. The seemingly innocent brown paper no longer fooled her; she knew what sort of low-cut lacy things were likely hidden inside.

"You really didn't have to," she said, but her weak protest was lost in the woman's eager explanation of deciding what colour would best suit her.

"Ginny just wanted to go Gryffindor scarlet all the way, but I didn't think that was quite right," the woman said. "I mean, that's a pretty bold colour – not that you aren't bold – but in terms of lingerie, that just isn't right for you. Besides, you're practically a Ravenclaw, so I figure blue is way better for you. It took some doing, but Ginny finally saw reason."

Hermione dropped onto the bed, certain this would be a long story, "Did she?"

"I'm quite convincing when I want to be, you know," she said proudly. "But then we couldn't decide on the cut. We went to three different shops and still couldn't decide! How do Muggles do it when they can't just transfigure stuff?"

She stopped listening. Her head nodded and her mouth offered 'hm's at appropriate intervals, but she had no idea what the woman was still talking about, just that it resulted in her being given a set of lacy garters and seamed stocking that she had no intention of wearing for anyone, ever. Her brain was still on autopilot well after Tonks left her, and she wanted to keep it that way. It was a rare and precious moment when her brain would finally shut down and allow her not to think, and she had quite a lot lately that she would dearly love to not think about, not the least of which was the ridiculous undergarments Ginny and Tonks decided she needed. She intended to enjoy every blissful moment of vacancy before the reality of the deadline returned to her.

After several hours staring at a stain on the carpet that looked simultaneously like a water buffalo and a seahorse depending on how she turned her head, her stomach drew her back to conscious thought. Frowning, she trudged down the stairs. The house was dark; it must have been so late in the evening that it was already Saturday as Sirius rarely went to bed before midnight when he had guests over. Her frown deepened as she wondered when and where that particular bit of trivia had been stored away, for she had never gone out of her way to learn Sirius' sleeping habits.

Pushing open the kitchen door, she staggered to a standstill. The light was on and someone was rummaging in the icebox. She took a tentative step closer, "Hello?"

"Ah, Hermione," Remus said as he stepped around the still-open door of the icebox.

She gaped at the mass of food in his arms. "How are you possibly that hungry?"

"Full moon's tomorrow," he shrugged.

"Oh."

Taking his place at the open icebox, she stared at the shelves for something appetising and settled for a roast chicken.

"So… how are things?" he asked vaguely.

"How do you think?" she replied darkly, throwing the roasted chicken onto the counter and carving it up as she wished she could the weak-minded Ministry workers who had been duped into passing such an abomination.

"Not well, I'm guessing," he muttered. "Has the chicken offended you?"

She glanced down and saw that she had stabbed the bird in the chest. "This whole situation keeps getting worse. It's bad enough being forced to marry, but…" She growled and tore the knife from the carcass.

"Hermione," he said gently. "You are a brilliant witch. Surely, you can see the necessity in this."

"I do…" she sighed. "It's just that I haven't ever… And this isn't exactly something I could master from a book, now, is it?"

He nervously rubbed at the back of his neck and blushed. "You'd be surprised."

After a moment of consideration, she discovered that she had learned quite a bit from the books Sirius had cheekily spelled onto her bookshelves. Still, this was more like flying a broom than Herbology; simply reading the book would only get her so far.

"Look," Remus said once his mild embarrassment had subsided. "Think of it as another subject you need to learn. When it comes to this particular subject, I suspect you'd be hard-pressed to find a teacher better than Sirius. He's spent more than his fair share of time in the bedroom."

"Are you implying that I'm cheap, Moony?" Sirius demanded as he entered the kitchen. His voice was hard but there was a smile pulling at his mouth.

Remus shook his head. "No one would ever dare call you a cheap date. I recall one Silvia Dunn, who seventh year spent a fortune buying you a leather jacket for Christmas just to get your attention. Poor girl."

"Poor girl?" Sirius repeated, scandalised. "Poor me! She slathered that thing with a lust draught. I couldn't think straight for a month!"

Hermione laughed. There were a few girls at Hogwarts she could imagine pulling such a stunt.

"No laughing at me in my own house, dammit," he glared at them both. "Just for that, you owe me a sandwich." He slapped his hand down on the counter as if he were the Supreme Mugwump himself.

"Which of us might that be?" Remus asked.

"Both!"

"Well, now you're just being silly."

"My house, my rules. You laugh at me, I get a sandwich," his fierce declaration might have held more sway had his face not cracked open in a yawn midway through.

Remus shook his head. "Maybe you should go to sleep instead."

"That sounds like a better plan," he agreed. "Plenty of room if anyone gets cold in the night." With his strange offer hanging in the air, he glanced at Hermione and left.

A/N: Thirty-two days of teachertude down! The kids are awesome, the paperwork... not so much.