All You Want Chapter 6, a harry potter fanfic

"Ready whenever you are, dearest." Sirius said, once more proffering his arm to Hermione. Blushing at the term, Hermione gingerly took it.

"Of course I'm ready."

The two, followed by a huffily annoyed Draco, made their way back into the Burrow.

Scrimgeour looked dressed for a party. His red-gold-silver streaked hair was combed back and held with a thick black ribbon. He wore a black suit, styled almost after the Muggle fashion, with a deep, navy blue cloak over his shoulders. Decorative military medals of gold hung on this cape importantly, almost imperiously. He looked down his distinctive nose at Sirius and Hermione, who were approaching.

An almost-smile broke his façade as he reached out a hand to grasp Sirius's. "Mr. Black, I presume?" He asked politely. Sirius gave a nod, devoid of all the curt nature he yearned to throw into it. Something about Scrimgeour put him on edge.

The older man turned to Hermione and broke a genuine smile. "And this lovely young lady must be Miss Granger." He took her hand, which had been hesitantly offered for a dainty shake, and brought it to his lips. He kissed it, and Hermione let it fall dazedly. Of the handful of times her hand had been kissed, none of them felt as terribly wrong as that time had. She felt something odd ripple through Sirius, at her side, and she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. He looked rigid, almost not lifelike, and with an inward chuckle, Hermione realized that Sirius had not yet quite proven himself to be alive, other than showing the slightest hints at movement.

"Minister," Hermione acknowledged, bobbing her head slightly and to the side in a polite nod. It hit her how much better she had gotten at diplomacy since Sirius had come back. Her prior run-ins with any high-ranking Ministry officials had not been lacking animosity after any fashion. Except for Sirius's icy expression, all could be taken as amiable in this conversation.

"Such nice costumes!" The Minister exclaimed. "Although I must admit, Mr. Black, that color does not suit you very well."

Sirius gave a grimace, as Hermione raised her eyebrows. She could scarce think of a better color to suit Sirius—she did not quite know what the Minister was playing at. She heard Sirius's controlled reply: "You're too kind, Minister." She squeezed his arm gently, in what she hoped was a comforting manner.

"Ah, but such matters as clothing are trivial," Scrimgeour said, waving his hand lightly, as if brushing dust from his shoulder. He sounded too pleased to brush Sirius away, Hermione thought, calculating as ever, but she bit her tongue and kept her ever-broiling temper to a simmer. "Not when I am speaking to the luckiest man at the party. I should feel honored." A needling smiled flounced across his face as he inclined his head mock-gravely to Sirius, who raised his eyebrows in question.

"Luckiest?" Hermione asked, looking quickly up at Sirius at her side.

"With such a beautiful woman on your arm, you dare not doubt my assessment, Mr. Black." Hermione turned bright red in embarrassment, Sirius the same hue, but probably from a different emotion. Scrimgeour turned to Hermione now and smiled. "Perhaps you will save a dance for me later?"

Hermione curtsied the slightest amount. "Perhaps, sir."

"Come on, Hermione," Sirius said, tugging slightly on her arm. "Let's go dance." A quick tango was currently being played. Hermione quickly followed her partner out onto the floor, away from Scrimgeour. She did not notice that Sirius made certain to place Hagrid and Madame Maxime's couple dance between the two of them and the Minister at nearly all times. When the older man was visible, however, chatting away at the people around him, Sirius threw him terribly dirty looks.

Hermione did not miss the fun in dancing with Sirius. He was quite good at the tango, really, and she enjoyed her front pressed against his front; he always seemed to emanate a perfect sort of warmth. There was little more, Hermione thought with an inner sigh, that she would have asked for as per this Christmas.

However, she had not yet looked up at him; realizing that this was silly behavior, she did so. What she saw made her completely cool, despite the warmth she had been washed in before. Sirius was looking down at her, something in his eyes so thick and fiery, slathering her with an attention so filled with—what was it? It was nothing she could recognize. Just then, she imagined his arms around her tighter, his mouth moving hypnotically on hers. This could not be a memory of their only ever kiss… it was impossible that was the case. They had not kissed like this, like how Hermione was feeling. Yet she opened her eyes, and Sirius was not kissing her, merely looking at her with those eyes that felt like lips moving over her body. He was observing her almost prayerfully. Neither looked away until that song faded, and a newer, much slower one took its place.

"Do you still want to dance?" Sirius asked. Something was funny about his voice.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. It was all she could do from saying yes, completely, and urging him to kiss her the way she wanted him to. Ridiculous behavior… don't be stupid, Hermione! Her inner self berating such foolishness. Instead of voicing any of these internal qualms, she said, "I thought we were just dancing to get away from Scrimgeour…." She breathed in his scent as he pulled her closer and began swaying to the music. He smelled very heady, nearly causing her to go to sleep right there in his arms.

"We were," he said, and she enjoyed the way his voice rumbled underneath her ear as he spoke, "but I'm rather enjoying myself. How about you?"

She grinned, and knew that he felt it through his robes. She mumbled something, and then said, "I'm having a grand old time."

Sirius chuckled, and Hermione relished the sound, the feel of his laughter. She did not fall asleep, but floated away with the gentle rocking, on a kind of cloud nine with him there along with her.

Hermione. In his arms. Dancing with him. Something about this felt wrong, but that was wholly overwhelmed by all that felt right. He was not thinking with his mind anymore—his arms had forced him to hold her, his tongue, to ask her to dance, his feet, to revolve slowly with her. His eyes could not tear themselves from the top of her beautiful brown head. It hit him then, the seed of the thought, not yet completely formed, but a click on some subconscious level—he was not just grateful she had brought him back. He was in love with her. And then, at that thought, as it developed slowly, even the tiny bit of wrongness left him, and there was suddenly only Hermione and Sirius, and a love, now recognized, steadily growing to be the size of the earth.

It was so catastrophic. He wondered how he had not noticed it before. He was not shaken by it, however, as he thought he perhaps should be. It was, instead, oddly calm-inducing. He could wait. He could and would wait forever if he had to. Her being in his arms was enough for this moment, enough for now.

That all faded when he felt a tap on his shoulder, and heard the clearing of a throat behind him.

Hermione heard, too, and lifted her head from Sirius's chest. Rufus Scrimgeour stood, stately, behind Sirius's shoulder. Both raised their eyebrows in question at him.

"May I cut in?" The older man asked.

Hermione looked quickly at Sirius. He looked as if he was greatly contemplating saying 'no'; something about the set of his face belied a rather thick smattering of anger brewing like a storm within his skull. However, to deny this to the Minister would be to tap into more trouble than was worth it. Sirius hesitantly stepped back, eyes searching for and finding Hermione's. She nodded, as the Minister put his hands on her waist, and Sirius stepped back, still looking at Hermione, until he was off the dance floor. Hermione saw him float over to socialize with Harry and Ginny, who were taking a break from dancing. She continued to watch Sirius, merely standing there, as he spoke with his godson. She felt the warmth he had given her quickly sapping away, and frowned, eyes drifting to a half-shut position.

"It's remarkable, isn't it? That's he's back?" Scrimgeour said. When Hermione whipped her head to look at the man with whom she was dancing at a bit of a distance, he was not looking at Sirius, but directly at Hermione. She found she did not like that gaze very much.

She shrugged gently. "It's just a mistake… something that went wrong, undone. That's the theory behind it, anyway."

"You had to pay that arch with your own blood, didn't you, though?" The Minister asked.

"Not tons of it. Just a little. You need less, if your blood is innocent." Hermione had always spoken about such things, things she had been studying, and found them facile conversation topics. She allowed her mind to wander as she spoke with the Minister.

"And how is innocence measured?"

"If you've never committed a murder, for one." Hermione said, deciding not to go into the others. Scrimgeour was probably the last person she would like to touch on these topics with.

"Ah, but you have committed murder, Miss Granger." Scrimgeour said, amused look on his face. "How else is your blood 'innocent'?"

Hermione shivered at the reminder of her past actions. Well, he had caught her. Blushing wholeheartedly, she said quietly, "If you've never—lain with anyone… that's a factor, as well." Hermione quickly went through a mental list of the people who sharing this conversation with would be terribly awkward. After making quick decisions about Mr. Weasley and Draco Malfoy, but unable to do so about Sirius, she put the Minister as the second member of the list.

"Ah." Scrimgeour uttered, and Hermione blushed looking down at her chest.

Hermione could have sworn that, moments ago, dancing with Sirius, the neckline of her dress had been about an inch higher. Hermione did not have much to show, but all that could have been said to be acceptable at all—and even that, only in a place of quite ill repute—was showing. She looked, scandalized, up at the Minister, who was looking elsewhere. Her hands dropped from around his neck, and he looked down at her, taking a step away from him.

"What's the matter?" He asked, and his voice suddenly made Hermione go cold down to her core. She glared at him with what she hoped was all the power and fury and affront that she had.

Her lips parted slightly, and she said, as evenly as could be expected under the circumstances, "I don't much feel like dancing anymore. Pardon me, sir."

And with that, she broke her way through the dancing couples on the floor, out through the open back door and into the quiet garden, the cold of the night hitting her like a tidal wave. Suddenly, all she wanted was out.

Rufus Scrimgeour stayed behind on the dance floor sidelines, a smirk growing slowly on his face. "So spirited." He said mildly, smirk turning into as big a grin as he would allow himself.

Sirius and Harry had been busy catching up, talking about the rightful owners of fortunes and houses, but also about the mundane things—how Harry and Ginny were doing, a description of their little cottage. Sirius told Harry some of the slightly more personal facts of the story—not all of them; he did not want his godson knowing what he had only that night learned himself, even though the small fact, like any secret, grew until bursting, attempting to cause Sirius to yell it out to anyone who could hear. He stomached it. This was about maturity. He could wait as long as was necessary.

During this entire time, he had been glancing as casually as could seem polite at Hermione and Scrimgeour dancing; he was watching, eyes wide, as Hermione stepped back, and then made her track-star dash for the garden.

Sirius was in the middle of a sentence to Harry, but that was forgotten. He dropped the drink he had been holding (Harry caught the glass before it shattered, but his arm was drenched in the liquid) and turned, racing after his date, wondering how things had gone awry, and what limb, exactly, of Scrimgeour's he was going to detach first.

Sirius did not catch up to Hermione in the house, nor see her when he entered the garden, but he somehow knew where she had headed. He kept on until he reached the area that held the old bench on which they had been seated merely ten or so minutes before. As he suspected, the hedges were once more around the bench, and Hermione sat on it. Sirius watched for a few seconds as she conjured up a plain white paper fan, spread it quickly, and held it up to her chest. She fanned herself lightly, but it was cold, that Sirius could only guess the purpose for such a thing.

He took a step back and vaulted the hedges, landing heavily on the cobblestones of the back edges of the courtyard. Hermione turned to face him quickly.

"Sirius," she breathed, overexertion evident in the timbre of her voice, as well as the flush on her face. A flick of the eyes told Sirius that even her shoulders blushed, but he did not continue to look at them. He could not tell from what she had so far expressed, or the matter in which she had done so, whether she wanted him there with her inside the hedges or not. He remained standing, rather than attempt to sweep to sit next to her, and she continued to look at him through those weeping, yet only slightly shining brown eyes.

"Hermione? What happened? What did he do?" Sirius tried to control his voice, but it cracked proverbially. He winced slightly at the desperation evident in his own being, the anger twirling inside of him.

Hermione flushed even deeper, and cleared her throat slightly. "He was… very rude." She managed, pulling the neckline of her dress up self-consciously. Sirius was silent for a few moments, before his eyes grew inches at least in diameter, and his eyebrows rose practically to his hairline.

"Oh." He said meekly. Now that she mentioned it, he had not noticed before her bodice being quite so low-cut. "Did he…?"

Hermione sniffled a little and nodded. Sirius, forgetting about waiting for an invitation to sit with her, did so, and collected her into his arms. He felt more angry than wanting to console, however, and smoldered silently while Hermione gratefully allowed her hair to be stroked.

"I'll pull out his arms, first," Sirius began, voice filled with a bitter anger usually saved for more special occasions, "and then his hair. One by one, those hairs'll come out… and then, his teeth. With my bare hands. And then his legs, so he can never walk again, and then I'll take his eyeballs out, boil them, and put them back in…" the color of his story grew and grew, and soon, Hermione was giggling with the interesting things Sirius was ready to do to get back at Scrimgeour.

"Sirius," Hermione sighed, stopping his violent-sounding rants with a simple finger to his lips, "thank you. You're perfect."

Sirius smiled. "I try to be."

The two were conspicuously leaning towards each other; Sirius quickly pulled his face forward, and his lips tenderly brushed her cheek. Pulling back, breathing a little heavily, they both jumped when they heard a voice—nastier, if it was even possible, than the voice which he interrupted the two before—from beyond the hedges.

"Ah, Miss Granger, Mister Black… how pleasant it is to see you again. I trust you are enjoying the party?" Scrimgeour said. There was an odd tone to his voice, not the polite diplomacy of before, instead a kind of fuming silent quality beneath his words; Hermione and Sirius both felt their blood boil at it. At the wave of his hand, the hedges scurried, as if frightened of him, back to their original places. Wandless magic… showoff, Sirius thought. As if he were not unpleased enough with the Minister already.

Anger showing in ever square inch of his being, Sirius swept to his feet, eyes smoldering, hair practically standing on end.

"I ought to—" Sirius began, but there was something about the nonchalant, would-be urbane fashion in which Scrimgeour shook his head that rendered Sirius speechless. This was not good. Mere breaking-and-entering charges to hang over Hermione's head would not have given the Minister such a self-pleased look.

"Now, now, Mister Black… let us not do anything we are going to regret, hmm?" Scrimgeour asked, wicked smile curling on his face. "I have come to talk with both of you… you can take this as a kind of re-initiation into our society, Black. You've got to learn the rules here—my rules. Are you listening?"

Hermione stood, and allowed herself to be pulled next to Sirius. She put her arms about his waist, head slightly in his chest. Sirius slowly gave a powerful, angry nod, the fury behind which would have sent most sensible men running. The Minister was not a sensible man.

"Misuse of Ministry position. Breaking and entering a very important section of the Ministry of Magic. These charges could put Miss Granger on the streets… or even in Azkaban. For months." Scrimgeour's eyes did not leave Sirius. "But that's not all. The fact that you were in the Order of the Phoenix when it was about before the birth of Harry Potter sheltered you from many charges pressed against you and your ever-troublesome friends. However, being that yourself and Mister Lupin are the only ones left alive (in a manner of speaking) all these charges—theft, disturbing the peace, vandalism, assault—added together, split two ways, would equal five years in Azkaban for the both of you."

Sirius felt Hermione trembling against him, until he realized that both were trembling. He slowly wound his arms around her.

"What is this supposed to be telling us, Minister?" Hermione asked, voice icy and hard despite her shaking. Sirius could feel the power of her anger seeping through where they touched.

"It means, Miss Granger," Scrimgeour kept his voice light and pleasant, now, as he had inside the Burrow, "that doing as I say would be the most intelligently strategic movement, at the moment." Hermione detested that smile, his terrible piercing gaze. There was none of the warmth like that which was held in Sirius's face, and it made Hermione want to cry out in pain from merely being seen by him, with his eyes like claws raking over her near-completely exposed bosom, her flushed, angry face… the arms which encircled Sirius, and, in turn, Sirius's arms, which encompassed Hermione.

"That's blackmail!" Sirius stated angrily, practically fuming, clenching his jaw so tightly that he felt it would break his teeth.

"Is it?" Scrimgeour asked. "Hmm… I don't believe so. It's just… looking out for our best interests. Good night. I'll expect to see you at work bright and early on the third, Hermione."

He turned and left, leaving nothing but a painful taste in Hermione's mouth at hearing that monster speak her name with such attempted grace; she was unable to put up with it any longer. She slightly collapsed onto the stone bench, and allowed her head to fall into her hands.

Sirius debated with himself, trying to come up with good, rational reasons not to pound Rufus Scrimgeour's face until it was all a bloody mass; he was distracted from this, however, when he felt Hermione's arms leave him, and her slip away to crumple neatly onto the bench. Sirius watched her, and knelt before her.

"Hermione?" He asked tenderly, taking one of her hands into both of his. She looked up, and caught him up in that deep brown gaze.

"Let's leave, Sirius." Was all she said. It was all she had to say. Sirius nodded, and, side by side, the two Disaparrated, leaving only two cups of punch and an empty stone bench in their wake.

AN: Happy New Year, everybody! How did you like the new chapter?