Wedlocked
Chapter 18: Presumptions

Hermione shifted her shoulders and hips; anyone observing her might think she dancing in slow motion to a tune only she heard, but really she was feeling the foreign undergarments beneath her jeans and jumper. Despite the normal appearance of her clothes, they felt strange. Every time she moved, she could tell there was something different.

"They were right," Hermione admitted quietly to the empty kitchen.

It was true what Lily and Tonks had said. She did feel special. She did feel pretty. Though not even a lace bodice could make her feel sexy.

"Two out three is still pretty good," she conceded and gave one last shimmy before dropping into a chair with her buttered toast and cup of tea. She ate alone since Tonks had yet to return from hunting down Sirius and Remus. Considering how little Hermione knew about London, she was surprised they would have even considered the possibility of her running off into the city. Foolish idea, really.

"Hermione?" Remus called.

"In the kitchen!" the girl shouted back.

She heard feet slamming hard on the floor as he ran from the entrance hall to the kitchen. Thank goodness Walburga had been removed otherwise they would have had quite the time shutting her up. Remus threw the kitchen door wide and stormed into the room, lifting her from her chair and pulling her into a hug. "Don't you ever scare us like that again!" he ordered.

"Okay," she agreed, though the misunderstanding was hardly her fault. She had been asleep in her bed, exactly where she belonged. How was it her fault that they hadn't bothered pulling the blankets up to look if she was there or not?

"We were so—" his words died as his hand pressed against her back. It froze like the words in his mouth and she knew that he could feel the metal ribs of the bodice beneath her jumper.

He knew.

He pulled back quickly, his eyes focused with absolute determination on a point somewhere to the left of her head. His cheeks were a rosy pink that she suspected had nothing to do with his just running in from the brisk autumn morning. The girl had to bite her lip at his embarrassment, though, surprisingly, she felt little of her own.

"What's the matter, Moony?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing!" the man said quickly. "I'm happy you're safe and I'm going to go now." He spun around and fled.

Sirius's eyes followed the retreating werewolf before he turned back to Hermione. He did not look pleased. "Nice of you to join us," he bit out the words with a barely supressed sneer. She watched him cross the room to the icebox, tension obvious in his shoulders. As he leaned against the counter, a bottle of beer in his hand, he continued, "I thought you said you would leave a note next time."

"Yes, and I will when I go somewhere," she said, annoyance colouring her voice. "But since I didn't go anywhere, I don't see why you're angry."

"I woke up alone."

"So?"

"I should have woken up with you," he practically shouted, slamming the bottle down. "What am I supposed to think when I wake up alone after offering my bed to you?"

She glared at him, trying with all her might to set his hair ablaze with her anger. "Of all the presumptuous-" she huffed. "It takes more than some drowsy, half-drunk suggestion to get me into bed, Sirius."

"Apparently," he agreed sarcastically. "Even with Azkaban coming ever closer, you'd rather hide in your room like a frightened rabbit."

"I'm a virgin, you bastard!" she slapped him across the face with enough force to snap his head to the side. "I'm allowed to be nervous!"

He clenched his jaw, clearly fighting the desire to return the physical blow. "You're supposed to be clever, too."

"You are absolutely insufferable," she declared or at least she tried to. It was difficult to speak when his lips were crushed against hers. His tongue forced its way into her mouth and was bringing all his spite and fervent anger with it. So far as kisses went, this was by far the most pleasurable she had ever had, which only made her more irate. She wanted to kiss him back, to put all her animosity into him as he was into her, but she knew that was what he wanted. He would feed on her rage, tease it into desire and without any effort, they would be naked together in the throes of exhilaratingly fierce sex. No doubt it would be the greatest she would ever experience, but that was not how her first time was meant to be.

With monumental force of will, she untangled her fingers from his hair and pushed at his chest, but he only leaned farther into her, tilting her head back and deepening the kiss.

'Not good,' she thought and searched desperately for a way to break the kiss, for she knew there was no way he would stop on his own. Cringing at how furious it would make him, she resorted to the only method she knew that would guarantee results. She jerked her knee up with as much velocity as she could, hitting the mark with painful accuracy.

"Fuck!" Sirius wheezed as he fell to the floor, bent double and clutching his groin. "fucking… ow… fuck…"

"You are a pig!" she shouted and ran from the room, slamming first the kitchen door then the one to her bedroom.

Several minutes passed with her crouched behind her bed, wand ready and eyes fixed on her door, just waiting for him to come barrelling through cursing and hexing her, but her strained ears caught the slamming of the front door and a loud 'crack'. Sirius must have been angry if he was making such a loud noise as he Disapparated; he normally disappeared with virtually zero noise signalling his departure. Again she frowned, wondering when she had noticed precisely how loud his Apparitions were. Strange the information she squirreled away without realising.

"That did not go well," she sighed.

No one came into her room for the rest of the morning, not even Lily or James. She caught the tidy black hair and curious grey eyes of Regulus peeking around the frame of the landscape painting that hung in her bedroom, but he said nothing and left before she could say anything. She couldn't imagine what he had come to see. She was sitting on her bed reading her Transfiguration textbook – Wow! Ever so exciting! She rolled her eyes and glared down at the text.

Shortly before two in the afternoon, she stuck her head out into the hallway. The house was dead silent. It only made her more nervous. On muted feet, she crept down the stairs and into the kitchen, which was as quiet as the rest of the house. Not wanting to run this gamut again, she grabbed as much food as she could, including the roast chicken she had viciously stabbed the night before. Loaded to capacity with rations, she hurried back up to her room and stayed locked and warded inside for the rest of the night.

Near midnight, as she lay in the dark unable to sleep, the floor outside her door groaned under the weight of someone considerably heavier than Kreacher. Whoever it was outside walked away in the direction of Sirius's bedroom; half a minute later the floorboards creaked again. The beating of her heart filled her ears with an erratic, frightened rhythm, which only increased and grew more frenzied when she saw the wards around her door glow as they were removed. The doorknob turned slowly, but stopped and the floorboards indicated that Sirius – for it had to be Sirius – was leaving again.

She stared at the door, waiting for him to come back again and wondering if he really would. Was he the sort of man who would simply take what he wanted? This would, of course, imply that he wanted her.

'No,' she thought. 'He doesn't want me. He wants to avoid Azkaban.'

As she watched and wondered, the doorknob turned again.

This time it did not stop.

Quickly as she could, before the door opened, she threw herself onto her side, closed her eyes and tried to keep her breathing like that of deep sleep. She wanted so badly to look, to see if the door had opened, to know if he was in the room.

She knew how she appeared to him – as a child, that girl of fourteen he had encountered barely two years ago with enormous front teeth and unruly hair that stuck out as if she had been electrocuted on a humid day. It had to be what he saw now, she reasoned, and why he muttered "Swot" to the dark room before leaving her untouched. Daring to look, she watched the door shut behind him. He did not return; she knew because she lay awake all night thinking over what it was that truly worried her.

While she hated the idea of losing her virginity both to a man she didn't love and under duress, that was not her issue. Imagining what it was Sirius saw when he looked at her had shown her what it was that concerned her. She feared that she would not be good enough. As Sirius had said, he had done his fair share of shagging while she had done nothing more than kiss and only one boy at that. Her husband was probably expecting something at least decent if not spectacular after providing her with so many manuals. She had read them, true, but that did not mean she could utilise all the information on the first try.

Worse than fearing her own inadequacy, she now feared Sirius's anger. Her behaviour had been horrid, childish even. However, somewhere between Sirius leaving her room and dawn, that shame at how she treated him faded and was replaced by absolute conviction that Sirius deserved having his bollocks assaulted after he had insulted her so callously and then forced himself on her. He had acted the bastard and her reaction was perfectly acceptable by modern standards.

She sat and fumed through most of Sunday, no one bothered her until a hard knock startled her late in the afternoon.

"Hermione?" Tonks shouted. "Are you in there? It's time to go!"

"Are you alone?" the girl demanded.

"Yes," she replied in confusion. "Where's Sirius?"

Hermione threw the door wide. "I don't know nor do I care. Let's go before he comes back." She gripped Tonks's hand and ran down the stairs.

"See you next time!" James called as she flew past.

Hermione groaned. "I hadn't thought about next time."

"Was the sex bad?" Tonks asked, shock written all over her face.

"I wouldn't know."

"Huh?"

"Just get me out of here!" she ordered and gripped the woman's arm so tightly she left a bruise. They turned on the spot and Hermione felt compressed as the magic took them from London to Hogsmeade.

"So…" Tonks began as they walked the winding path up to the castle. "What happened?"

"Nothing," replied the girl with so much force that Tonks did not try to speak again until she was offered an awkward 'goodbye' at the main gate of Hogwarts.

Hermione marched up the path, her anger growing with each step. By the time she made it up to Gryffindor Tower, dropped off her bag and stomped back down to the Great Hall, she was beyond livid and thought Azkaban a perfectly reasonable alternative to spending even a second in Sirius's company, let alone his bed.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked when she started stabbing the jacket potato on her plate.

"Your Godfather is insufferable," she bit out.

"Oh," he replied, something resembling relief flitting across his face. "I was afraid you would come back all gooey and Lavender-y about him."

She snorted scathingly, "Hardly."

"Ron was sure you'd be completely in love after… you know…"

The girl's brow knit together in a deep and unhappy frown. Why were her friends, her male friends who only ever discussed Quidditch and Voldemort, discussing her sex life in her absence? She focused her ire at Harry before turning to look at Ron. Her eyes fell on an empty space. She looked to Harry's other side, where Seamus sat. Her scowl fell away in favour of honest curiosity, "Where's Ron?"

"He's… uh… with Lavender," replied Harry quietly. "They're sort of going out."

"Oh," she said. "That's nice."

"Aren't you angry?" he asked. "I thought you two liked each other." He avoided her eye, choosing instead to focus on his fidgeting hands.

"I am angry," she sighed, "but not about that. Just because my life has been destroyed by The Bloody Law doesn't mean I don't want my friends to be happy. If they like each other, I guess it's fine."

He nodded silently for a minute, the crease in his brow deepening with each bob of his head. "What if I don't like it?" He leaned in, his voice dropping to a thin whisper. "Lavender is really annoying."

Hermione laughed, a properly loud laugh that shook her belly and cracked her face in half with a smile that pained her cheeks.

"I mean it!" he insisted. "She talks to him like a baby, calls him 'Won-Won'."

"Oh, that is priceless!" Hermione squealed as tears rolled down her cheek. "I cannot wait to see Ron's face!"

Harry slumped in his seat, brooding for the rest of dinner. He grumbled his way back to the common room and groaned when Ron and Lavender sat down beside him on the couch, cooing and kissing noisily.

"Aren't they precious?" Hermione sniggered.

Harry swatted at her arm, hissing, "Don't encourage them!"

Ron and Lavender seemed completely oblivious to Harry's annoyance and Hermione's teasing and continued to snog with abandon even after Harry left for his private lesson with the Headmaster. Hermione just laughed her way up to her bed and slept through the night undisturbed by dreams or rattling doorknobs.

Harry was still smouldering over breakfast, though it might have been more to do with the coming Defence Against the Dark Arts class with Snape than with her lack of support. He ignored her attempts at conversation, not budging even when she inquired about what memories he and Dumbledore had viewed the night before. The boy remained taciturn toward her through class and for the rest of that day.

oOo

"Can't they even stop for class?" Harry groaned as they left greenhouse six on Tuesday. "It's embarrassing."

Hermione nodded. She was thankful the couple was still in the greenhouse being told off and given detention by the generally jovial Professor Sprout, otherwise the lovebirds would be walking beside her and Harry, kissing each other loudly. She had to admit, "It is starting to get a little old."

"Ha!" Harry declared triumphantly. She endured his 'I told you so's until they reached the Great Hall, where he stopped abruptly. "Hey, it's Sirius. What's he doing here?"

She followed his pointing finger until her eyes landed on the handsome face of Sirius Black. He was sitting at the high table talking to Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, a casual smile on his face. As she watched, he turned and looked over at them, nodding to the wave and broad grin Harry was sending his way before he met her eye. The man's lack of emotion when looking at her spoke to just how pleased he was to see her.

"Bastard," she muttered and spun around, stomping an angry path back to Gryffindor Tower, locking herself in her bedroom and not caring one bit that the other two girls that shared it would be unable to enter. If they couldn't get in then neither could Sirius. She sat herself down on the windowsill and glared at the path that led to the main gate, certain he would leave that way eventually. Her backside grew numb and her legs became cramped, but she refused to move from her post. Parvati came pounding on the door, Ginny knocked not long after; Hermione denied either one entrance. Finally, after eight long hours and two missed meals, she saw Sirius walk from the castle with Professor Dumbledore. The men took their time, strolling leisurely along the worn path; Dumbledore paused and gestured to Gryffindor Tower. She was certain they were talking about her.

"What was that all about?" Ginny demanded the second the door was unlocked and opened.

"How long have you been out there?"

"Since just after dinner," the redhead told her. "Sirius was there. Why weren't you?"

She didn't answer.

"Weekend not go well?" Ginny guessed.

"No," Hermione said.

"No, it didn't go well… or no, it did?"

"It did not go well at all," Hermione sighed. The younger girl waited, her eyes and expression demanding information, which Hermione provided.

"He did act the knob, didn't he?" Ginny shook her head. "At his age, you'd think he'd know how to approach a girl."

"Apparently, he doesn't."

"Well, he'd best learn fast," she commented. "The deadline is in two days."

Hermione groaned and buried her head in her hands. "Don't remind me!"

"Someone has to," the girl said as she stood. "Azkaban is not a place I'd want to go. Especially if the alternative is sleeping with a gorgeous bloke."

Hermione snorted. "Gorgeous he may be, but he's still a git."

Ginny smiled and left Hermione alone.

The Bloody Deadline, that's what she had taken to calling it. The Bloody Deadline to fulfil their obligations under The Bloody Amendment of The Bloody Law. She hated every part of it, but that did not keep it from approaching at a breakneck speed. Wednesday flew past, with the evening spent glowering in the Prefect washroom after Nearly Headless Nick commented that he had seen Sirius walking rather purposefully toward Gryffindor Tower.

Her behaviour was childish, and she knew it. She also knew they had parted on just about the worst terms possible; she fully expected him to be as angry at her as she was at him, and she did not want to face him until it was absolutely necessary, which was why Thursday morning found Hermione peering around every corner, watching for any sign of her husband along the route from the Great Hall to Transfiguration.

"Who are you looking for?" someone whispered in her ear.

"None of your business!" she snapped, refusing to be deterred.

"It is if you're looking for me," he replied.

She froze. "Sirius?"

"Yes," he replied as he snaked an arm around her waist. "Hold on tight," he advised as she felt the hook of a portkey catch behind her navel.

A/N: Yeah, I'm totally making up for lost time, but I think after this I'll be back to my old once a week update each Thursday.