Dear Remus –
I've been held up and will be extending my trip a few more days.
– Hermione
"That's it?"
Remus handed him the letter and gave the last of his toast to the owl who'd delivered it. "That's it," he affirmed, moving to wash the mountain of dishes accumulating in the sink. Over the sound of running water, he heard Sirius flipping the parchment over, expecting some secret addition to be concealed on the back.
"This can't be it."
"No?" Remus laughed. "Because she didn't mention you, or because you thought she'd have continued your argument?"
"It wasn't an argument," corrected Sirius, tossing the letter aside.
"You're only saying that because you were in the wrong. Again." Remus shook his head, arms submerged to the elbows in hot, bubbly water. "Why must you always pick fights with her?"
"It's not fighting. And I don't know." He started to stand, thinking he'd help dry the dishes, and then sat back down. That's what Hermione did – him drying the dishes in her stead was tantamount to standing on a person's grave. "With you I'm exceedingly charming and good-natured."
His lover snorted. "Hardly. But the make-up sex is fantastic. You'll just have to try and be nicer to Hermione."
His response was a derisive snort.
If he looked hard enough, Sirius could just make out a faint vision of Hermione standing close to the counter in her favorite jeans. Her hair was down and it ran wild over her shoulders while she worked diligently to dry and stack the dishes Remus was washing by hand. She scratched at her ankle and shook back her sleeves with her usual carefree grace, all of it so real that he half-expected Remus to turn and say something to her.
But with that thought the image soured. "You're nice enough for the both of us," he muttered under his breath. A dish clinked loudly against the sink and Hermione shook her head at him before vanishing.
"E-Excuse me?" Remus stammered, covering his flustered reply by scrubbing with increased vigor.
Interesting.
Sirius frowned. "I was just thinking maybe you'd forgotten how young she was—" another loud clank of porcelain and he quickly added: "—I mean, what with how mature she acts."
Water was close to sloshing out of the sink as Remus worked hard at a pot, a tension in his shoulders that Sirius attributed to more than just a fervent attack against grease. "You're one to talk," the brunet retorted, hotly. "You treat her like child -- she may be Harry's friend, but she doesn't need you acting like her Godfather, Sirius."
Even as Remus spoke the words, Sirius was overtaken by an image of her so intense and so unexpected that he nearly fell off his chair. He watched her smooth skin glowing ocher in the light of a dozen lanterns, that red blouse slipping from her breasts as she threw back her head in ecstasy. It was then that the most alluring half-sigh escaped her parted lips – it hung suspended in the air, now heavy with sex. He watched her undulating above Charlie Weasley in that tent a thousand miles away and was made very much aware of how un-childlike she was.
Thirteen days later Hermione still hadn't returned.