Thank you all so much for the incredibly generous reviews, and I hope I hear more from you as well as from those who have my story on alert. Feel free to spread the word around too, and I hope you keep reading. I also have the beginnings of an HG/SS drabble series.
Blackbird Fly
Eight
Isolde and Sirius separated once they got to the castle, but not before Sirius could fold her into a hug and give her cheek another lingering kiss. She hurried back to her dormitory, hoping to tidy it up a bit before the other two arrived for what would probably be a new weekend tradition. Though, she thought with a snort, they're a bit wrapped up in each other right now to notice anything other than that.
Her room was very bohemian in some ways, as she preferred the "lived-in" look than the overly neat look. There were two large murals on the side walls inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and her bed had been transfigured into a nice loft to conserve space. She had also transfigured a small coffee table for under the table; it would serve as her dinner table tonight. Her desk, piled with old essays and aged books, stood in the corner. Isolde then flicked her wand at the wall lined with bookshelves to straighten them up before heading off to the kitchens to pick up a quick dinner for the three of them.
Isolde was waiting for Hermione and Severus in her room when they got back to the castle, the two looking more star-crossed than ever. She rolled her eyes as she invited the two in and pulled out the plate of sandwiches she'd requested from the kitchens. Passing it around, she asked, "'Lene, did you find anything out about my ring?"
"No, I couldn't' find anything about it in the library. I would guess that the stone just happens to have some sort of power that your parents didn't know about. How did they get it, anyway?" she asked before taking a bite of sandwich.
"Well, my mum wrote that they got it from the orphanage where I was at. The headmistress said it must have come from my family."
"Will your eyes ever turn back to normal, Zelda?" Severus asked, curious. Not many magical objects could permanently affect the physical appearance of a person, but even when Isolde took off the ring, she had red eyes.
"I doubt it, but I'm getting more used to them, I think. They look pretty with my hair." She twirled a coppery strand to emphasize the effect; Hermione nodded in agreement, seeing the bronze and gold highlights in her hair thanks to the deep red of her eyes.
"Let me see it," Severus said quietly, wondering if it was an old Wizarding heirloom. He scrutinized the ring carefully, turning it over and over in his palm. He shook his head. "I don't recognize it as belonging to any family. You are still a mystery, Isolde." Isolde slipped the chain over her neck and rubbed the stone of the ring possessively; while she was glad it hadn't put on another show, she had missed the trinket, hadn't felt complete without it.
She popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and walked over to her closet, giving Severus a light swat as she passed him. "I hope you both have a liking for Muggle music. I just don't think ours can compare, really, and you'll hear it a whole lot if you hang around me." She flicked through a crate of records, choosing three or four from the rather large music library. "Do either of you like Queen?" she asked, pulling her record player down from its shelf.
Hermione squealed and Severus scowled, unfamiliar with Muggle trends and remembering his friends' shenanigans. Isolde placed the player on her desk and handed Hermione the records. She shuffled through them quickly before handing one off to Isolde, a mischievous glint in her brown eyes. Isolde gave her a little smirk before putting the record in the player and flicking it with her wand to get it going. "High or low, Helene?" she asked, stifling a smile at Severus's confusion.
"Low, I think," Hermione replied, looking excitedly at the player. It was nice to know that some things had stayed the same in her time.
Before Severus could ask any more questions, the music started, with Isolde and Hermione singing along.
"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide; no escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see . . ." Then the two began wailing, "I'm just a poor boy; I need no sympathy—'' The finished the verse, growing steadily more melodramatic as the music continued.
He laughed as Isolde began miming piano-playing before the singing resumed, her eyes closed and her lips pouty; she milked it for all it was worth. Severus laughed at their theatrics over Mama killing a man, Hermione singing the back-up parts along with the main lyrics.
The mood shifted again, the girls bobbing alternately up and down in time with the music. They stayed that way until they both shouted (in Italian accents), "Scaramouche! Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?" at which point Hermione twirled Isolde ballroom style. Severus saw them then say "Galileo!" over and over again, alternating between high and low pitches; he finally understood the question.
Once the weird Galileo section was over, they began wiggling their fingers in mid-air and flipping their hair around while jumping angrily. "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN STONE ME AND SPIT IN MY EYE? SO YOU THINK YOU CAN LOVE ME AND LEAVE ME TO DIE? OH, BABY, CAN'T DO THIS TO ME BABY; JUST GOTTA GET OUT—JUST GOTTA GET RIGHT OUT OF HERE!"
Then they played more air guitar as the song slowed before putting their hands on each other's shoulders and swaying. Severus could barely contain himself—it was just too funny to see them like this. Isolde was always so serious and intense and Helene was prim and proper; neither of them had ever done anything so . . . silly in public; he had seen them do strange things while listening to music when they had played "Dancing Queen," but this was just insane. The song ended, leaving both girls looking sheepishly at him, remembering his overt distaste for anything so immature.
"Erm . . . I guess you thought that was childish of us, don't you, Sev?" Hermione said, looking like a spanked puppy. She remembered how acerbic Professor Snape was, especially when it came to maturity and the like.
"Indeed I did," Severus replied smoothly. "However, I can also say that your antics were . . . amusing." The girls broke into laughter at that, and Severus followed. They sat there, for a long time, listening to music and chatting about everything from childhood to politics and back again.
Hermione left not long after midnight, pleading both exhaustion and an appalling amount of procrastinated homework, and not even Severus's wheedling could convince her. As he was still insecure over the budding romance with her, he did not kiss her goodnight, choosing to wrap his arms around her waist and bury his head in her shoulder, brushing his lips against her neck and mumbling a quiet, "Sweet dreams." Isolde merely raised a brow at the unusual display of affection as well as Severus's slightly vampire-like tendency to go for the jugular instead of the cheek.
Once Helene was gone and the door was closed, Severus turned to face Isolde, motioning her to the pillows on her floor. He met her eyes, still trying to get accustomed to the vivid red; Isolde felt his eyes boring into hers, but she held firm, refusing to say anything until he made the first move. He finally sighed, inhaling before he spoke.
"I saw you with Black."
The words were final and deadly, but she stayed calm, her face a blank slate and her eyes empty. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want to know what the hell you thought you were doing."
Isolde refused to wince at the emotionless voice Severus was using. This was a Slytherin argument; it was not dramatic or loud—just basic facts and verbal sparring.
"He is my friend, Severus. Besides, you oughtn't get high-handed, considering your behavior around Evans for five years before she screwed you over for one little mistake."
Spots of color manifested on his cheeks and she could see rage in his eyes. "Lily was different."
"Really, Sev? I seem to recall that Lily tried to hex me while my back was turned, or did you forget that? You haven't been attacked since then, if you care to remember that much. Any pestering is done by James Potter, not Sirius Black. Not anymore."
Severus clenched his teeth, standing up and striding to the bookshelves. "I am trying to look out for you, Zelda. You're the baby sister I never had. You know that. Black is just going to hurt you if you get involved."
"I'm a big girl and I can handle myself, you know," Isolde replied evenly. "I know you care, Severus, but you don't even know that anything is going to happen."
"I do," he said darkly. "He looks at you the same way I look at—" He caught himself, but he didn't miss her smug smile and his own lips quirked into a lop-sided grin. "I'm just as obvious as Black is to you, aren't I?"
She nodded, laughing a little at the idea of Sirius Black getting together with someone like her. "I'll tell you what, Severus: if you're right, and Black really does like me and we fall in love, have lots of passionate sex and lots of babies, you will be godfather to our first child, who will also be named for you. Sound good?"
"The same goes for me, then," he said, flushing again. "I just—don't expect me to welcome Black with open arms, okay?"
Isolde nodded again. "I won't. I don't. I doubt it will become an issue, seeing as I don't think I'm his type anyway."
He gave her a blank stare, but his voice was slightly incredulous. "Isolde, don't, okay? You're an incredible person, no matter how much you wish it weren't true. Besides, you're female, therefore, you're his type."
She smacked his arm lightly, and he whacked her with a nearby pillow; it set off a quick but fierce battle that left both of them lying on their backs, panting. Severus, using the last of his energy, tossed a pillow at her half-heartedly, but it missed her.
Isolde laughed, saying, "Your aim is fantastic, Severus, really. Had I been four feet to the right, I would have gotten hit."
Before she could continue laughing, he cut her off with a pillow to the abdomen, using his long arm to just whack her. He then tucked the pillow under his head as Isolde pulled a blanket down from her bed. "Are you staying again, Sev? I don't mind."
He answered with a command of, "Turn out the blasted light, pull down whatever bedding you want, come over here and sleep."
Bemused, she obliged, covering them both with comforters from her bed as Severus shared his pillow. He hugged her, laughing as she curled up into a ball; Severus kept his long arms wrapped around her, which comforted Isolde. They were not lovers, nor would they ever be, but knowing the other was there was a nice thought.
Severus's eyes closed slowly, thoughts of Helene running rampant as Isolde mentally cataloged her faults and flaws to keep herself from liking Sirius Black too much.
Hermione woke up later than usual on the following day. She dressed and went for breakfast, still surprised that Isolde hadn't woken, despite her habit of sleeping late on Sundays. She knocked on her friend's door, opening it quietly when she didn't get a response. When she saw the room, Hermione gasped, her mouth hanging open.
Isolde and Severus were asleep together, Severus on his stomach with an arm thrown over Isolde, who was still in her ball and facing him. Not really knowing what to make of the situation, Hermione just left, the door slamming behind her and waking Severus and Isolde, who looked at each other in horror as they realized who it must have been.
They'd slept together.
She just knew it.
Bitter tears stung Hermione's eyes as she flung herself across her bed, which had a brilliant gold duvet on it; her room was her little Gryffindorian haven—pale sand-colored walls with splashes of bright reds and golds. That's part of why she panicked when she heard the frantic knocking at the door—her visitors had to be Slytherins.
Hermione tried to slam the door when she saw Isolde, but her once-friend was too quick, blocking the heavy dungeon door with her foot; Hermione slammed it into her foot again, taking a little pleasure in Isolde's cry of pain. Severus, frustrated, barreled into Hermione's room, helping Isolde due to her injured foot. Neither of them noticed the décor until Isolde had been seated on Hermione's bed, rubbing her foot and wincing, and while they would never ask about it to her face, they were suspicious.
"Merlin 'Lene—that really hurt. Why did you do that?"
Hermione's voice was passionate, poisonous in its sincerity, not its tone. "I saw you two! You slept together, didn't you?"
To her amazement and extreme chagrin, Isolde and Severus gaped at her for a long time before bursting into full belly-laughter, the sound bouncing off the dungeon walls. She huffed and crossed her arms at their rudeness; they were just mocking her now!
"If you two are done, I would like to be left alone." She turned her back to them, struggling when she felt Severus's arms covering hers and carefully uncrossing them and turning her around.
"Helene Fermier, you foolish girl. Isolde is the closest thing to a sister I'll ever have. You, however, are not." That being said, he pulled her to him, kissing her roughly, his mouth covering hers. It was possessive—everything he felt went into this one kiss: frustration, desire, need, sorrow, humility, apology . . .
Isolde was, at that point, finding extreme interest in cataloguing the bruises now speckled all over her foot thanks to the dungeon door.
Severus broke the kiss, still holding her tight, nearly croaking, "Don't you get it? I like you. I like you a lot. I want you to be my girlfriend, okay?"
Hermione nodded, throwing her arms around him numbly and crying softly into his chest.
"Is that a 'yes' then, 'Lene?" he whispered into her ear, his voice low and silky.
She hummed her response and he hugged her too, his arms clutching her, cradling her head into his chest and keeping her near him; where one body stopped and the other began was a near-mystery.
Isolde gave them their moment before clapping and bouncing on Hermione's bed. "I had hoped this would happen, and it's far better than I had hoped too; it was so romantic and dramatic, just like in movies!" The pair just looked at her, both asking the same silent question. Isolde smirked. "As you were both fumbling around each other like preteens for far longer than you should have, I took matters into my own hands and set up on blind dates with one another for the Ball. After those few nauseating weeks, you two had to go out, just so that I could move beyond this happy, little melodrama."
"I think we've underestimated her, Helene," Severus said, walking to the bed and giving Isolde a kiss on the top of her head. "Thank you," he whispered, low enough so that Helene couldn't hear him.
Isolde nodded and bounced off the bed, her foot still throbbing.
"I guess I owe you an apology, huh?" Hermione said, crossing to her friend and looking over the bruises she had so callously caused.
"Well, I figure this way, I can screw up and you won't be able to say anything about it," Isolde said, laughing a little. "Really, don't worry about it. It wasn't a ridiculous conclusion to come to when one thinks about it.
"In any case, I'm going to go and get lunch. Will you lovebirds be joining me?"
Severus nodded and picked up Hermione's hand, folding it in his. The happy couple and their happy matchmaker went up to the Great Hall, satisfied and relatively secure in their relationship, in Hermione (though dating a young Professor Snape was still a bit shocking to her) and Severus's case, or an internal mess, in Isolde's.