Wedlocked
Chapter 17: On Knickers

'Just go in!' Hermione shouted at herself.

Her hand was poised on the doorknob to Sirius's room, but, no matter how much she yelled, begged, bribed or reasoned with herself, her hand could not be made to turn it. This was her fifth attempt, and, as with the previous four, she pulled her hand away from the door and ran silently back to her own bedroom.

"Just go in!" she whispered furiously at herself. "Grab, turn, push. It's not complicated! He's probably asleep. He'll never even know you're there until morning." She looked at the clock; it was five o'clock. "It is morning. He'll be up soon."

Unsure whether the approaching dawn was beneficial or detrimental to her argument, she started pacing her room. Sirius would not have made the offer if he had not wanted her to come, but he had clearly been half-asleep and slightly drunk when he said it. So there was a chance the words came out without his even realising it. Though, if they were coming directly from his semi-conscious brain, would that not make the offer more credible? By the time she decided that he really had meant his offer to share his bed for the night, it was after six and hazy predawn light was just starting to peek above the skyline.

She squared her shoulders and set her face to maximum determination. "Last chance, Hermione."

Opening her door, she marched down the hall to his room, grasped the antique brass doorknob and turned it before she had the chance to second-guess her actions. She pushed the door open a fraction and peered inside. The room was heavy with long shadows, but after a moment she managed to decipher the furniture from the floor; Sirius rolling over helped considerably in determining where the bed was.

As he shifted in his sleep, rolling into a patch of sun and groaning when it hit his eyes, Hermione panicked. 'He has no shirt on,' her brain screamed and she all but slammed the door. 'No shirt. What if there are no pants? What if he's naked?'

She ran for the last time back to her room and buried herself in the suffocating and heavy layers of her bed to make up for all those that Sirius was lacking. Hidden beneath the unbearably warm blankets, she tried to imagine what would have happened if she had not spent hours fearfully pacing before being able to approach his room, if she had actually managed to open the door the first time she faced it five hours earlier. Would Sirius have been awake? Would he have been expecting her? Would he have been naked?

"I can't do this," she groaned and squashed the pillow down over her head, clenched her eyes shut and let sleep finally take her.

"FOUND HER!" someone bellowed from inside her room, startling the poor girl awake.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway and her door flew open. "Where is she?" Tonks demanded.

"There," James said.

"Who?" Hermione asked.

"You!" Tonks replied and pulled her up into a painful embrace. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

When she finally released her, Hermione squinted against the bright light of the morning, trying to see the woman's face. "Where else would I be?"

"With Sirius," she said as if it were obvious. "But he said he woke up alone. We didn't see you under all the covers, so we thought you might have panicked and run off. Sirius and Remus are out scouring the whole of London looking for you."

"That is just ridiculous," the girl told her and dropped back onto her pillow. She waited for Tonks to go on, but silence followed. The woman's eyes burned into her and Hermione wished she would say something rather than just stare at her.

"So what happened?" Tonks asked after her scrutiny failed to provide her with adequate information. "You obviously didn't make it to Sirius's room last night."

"I did so," Hermione insisted. "I just didn't make it through the door."

The woman laughed.

"What? I just… You're right; I panicked."

"Thought so," Tonks said and pulled her back up to sitting just so she could wrap the girl in another tight hug, this one far more comforting than the first.

Hermione buried her face in the woman's shoulder. "I never really thought about what it would be like – my first time – but I never imagined it would be mandated under threat of imprisonment."

"Damn," James muttered. "How are you that freakishly articulate as soon as you wake up?"

She breathed a dark laugh. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"We're going to have to contact the boys," Tonks said. "They could be anywhere by now. I think Sirius might've gone to Oxford thinking you were hiding there."

"What?" she asked. "How would I have even gotten that far? I can't even Apparate yet."

Tonks looked at her sideways. "If anybody could, it would be you."

Hermione clicked her tongue. It was praise and she should appreciate it, but she was stuck on the ludicrous notion of Remus and Sirius running the length and breadth of England searching for her when she was in her bed just three doors away from Sirius. "What are they panicking over, anyway?"

"You really don't know?" This time it was James who looked at her sideways. "He'll be extremely angry at me for telling you this…" the portrait said, stepping as close to her as the placement of the framed canvas would allow and whispering, "Sirius is feeling a little insecure right now."

Hermione snorted. "Sirius doesn't do insecure."

"Uh, yeah, he does," the man said as if she were an idiot. "You turned him down for sex… that is massive blow to ego stuff, that is."

"Nonsense."

James laughed derisively. "Aren't you supposed to be clever?"

Hermione pushed herself away from Tonks and glared hard at him.

"Allow me to translate your rejection into simple terms you will understand," he said, clearing his throat and continuing in a loud, clear voice. "Ministry says, 'Have sex or you go to Azkaban'. Sirius offers you his bed for the night, i.e.: sex, and you fail to show up. What this means is that you would sooner go to Azkaban and be handed over to Voldemort before you would sleep with Sirius."

Her eyes narrowed as she considered James and his assertions. He wasn't smirking and his eyes held none of his usual mischief, but she could not for one millisecond believe that what he said was true. There was no way that Sirius would take her virginal and self-conscious fears as anything but what they truly were. "Nonsense," she repeated.

"You are officially an idiot," James informed her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go find my wife and tell everyone to stop looking since the idiot's been found."

Hermione turned to Tonks, expecting the woman to tell her much the same thing, but she just glittered with excitement as she had the night before.

"What?" the girl asked nervously.

"I have an idea," she said and bit down on her lip to keep herself from trilling. "Maybe if you felt sexier it would be easier. I remember my first try was so embarrassing, but the next time round I felt like one sexy minx and it made everything so much better."

"Your first time was embarrassing?" Hermione asked. Oddly, she had never thought to talk to Tonks about her situation. The woman was more experienced than Ginny, so she would be capable of offering more realistic advice without sounding too much like her mother or Mrs Weasley.

"Oh my god, so embarrassing!" she covered her face and groaned. "It was a sixth year boy who shall remain nameless; I had a crush on him for months even though I was a year ahead of him. We got together at the Halloween Feast and ran away to hide in his dorm. We spent an hour snogging and fumbling with each other's clothes. Finally, I was completely naked, lying on his bed…" she paused to shake her head at the memory, "and he threw up at the sight of me!"

Hermione's face fell, "You're joking."

She shook her head again. "Ran from the room with his pants round his ankles. It took him a month to convince me to give him another go."

"What happened?"

"My friend, Portia, had gotten it in my head that I was a sex goddess to have made him react like that, so I went in there feeling like I could do no wrong," Tonks laughed at her foolishness. "It was stupid, but it worked. He didn't throw up and we were at it for hours. Not the best I've ever had, but certainly the most memorable."

"Oh," Hermione said. She wasn't quite sure that the woman's story pertained to her situation exactly, but she was willing to hear her out. "And your idea?"

"Since you probably won't believe me if I tell you that you're a sex goddess, you need something else to make you feel that way. The wedding presents Ginny and I gave you," she said with a grin. "Wear them."

Her eyes grew enormous at the thought of walking around in such things. "No, I don't think I can."

"Hermione, they're just knickers."

"Made almost entirely of lace, with bits of ribbons and things," she shook her head. "They aren't me. I'm…sensible."

"Well, fine," Tonks sighed. "Then I'm out of ideas. What works for me, clearly won't work for you."

"I appreciate the effort. Really," Hermione said. Tonks just nodded and went back down the stairs, no doubt to send word to Sirius and Remus that Hermione was safe and sound. Alone again, Hermione started to feel guilty that she was not taking her friend's suggestion more seriously. Despite being completely off the mark for what Hermione would willing wear beneath her clothes, Tonks and Ginny had put forth considerable time, thought and money into buying the undergarments for her.

She dug down into the bottom of her suitcase and pulled Ginny's gift out, laying it on the bed and looking at it with real consideration for the first time. As far as knickers went, they certainly were not the worst she had ever seen. They were quite pretty and covered all the bits she would wish to have covered. It was the sheerness of the lace that really bothered her.

"Oh, just try them on already," Lily said, exasperated.

Hermione shrieked and spun around. "How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to see you run through your mental pro-con list of wearing lacy knickers," the woman said as a smile overtook her stern face. "From the looks of it, the pros were winning. Am I right? I'm right."

"Maybe," the girl glowered. "But the cons are weighted considerably by embarrassment."

"What's so embarrassing? They're knickers. They're made of lace. So what?" Lily demanded. "For my first night, I would much rather wear something special than my boring, everyday knickers and underwire. Actually, I believe I had something special for every night of the honeymoon. James loved it."

Hermione breathed out a quiet laugh. "Ginny did say it was more a present for Sirius…"

"And she was right," Lily said. "But I'm guessing you've never had any special undergarments. They go a long way into preparing you mentally. Just go put them on. You'll see." She strolled from the frame, humming a smug tune.

Every female she dared to ask insisted that such knickers were perfectly acceptable. More than acceptable, they were necessary. She frowned and pushed them into the pocket of her dressing gown along with a pair of regular underwear. After a rushed shower, she put on her familiar and comfortable cotton underwear, fully intent on wrapping herself in the dressing gown and returning to her bedroom to dress. She knew, though, that she had to give the advice a chance and took her regular skivvies off.

The ribbons adorning the pants made perfect sense; their satin covered the elastic to keep it from pinching her skin as she slid the garment up her legs.

So that was one mark against the knickers gone.

Considering herself in the mirror, she was surprised to see that the cut was not at all embarrassing. Okay, so they revealed more skin than she was accustomed to showing, but she would happily have tolerated them if they were made of solid cotton.

There went a second of her complaints.

The lace, though, was still a bit of a sticking point. She could find no reason to like it and refused to budge on her displeasure in it. Unfortunately, the con list was now two items short. Moreover, the pro list was lengthened by one more point. She had to concede that the underwear did actually make her feel pretty and that she was wearing something special. Wrapped in her dressing gown, a feeling of excitement was added to the mix. No one knew what sort of knickers she was wearing. She had a sexy, lacy secret that only she knew. Tonks and Ginny and Lily had encouraged her, but they could not know what was against her skin.

Back in her room, she gave the additional gifts their fair consideration.

"Definitely not," she decided and set everything else into the innocent brown bag. She threw on one of her normal, everyday white bras and frowned down at herself.

They didn't match.

Few people knew that Hermione's obsessive organisation translated even to coordinating unmentionables. Seeing the white bra and blue lace panties shouting their inequity of style and luxury was too much. She took the bra off, threw it into her suitcase and tore the matching lace bodice from the shopping bag. "In for a penny, in for a pound," she sighed and fastened the many hooks.