Chapter 3:
Hermione stood on a small raised platform in her wedding gown in the Headmistress' office, where Ginny, Tonks, Luna, and Mrs. Weasley stood, either putting finishing touching on her dress or hair with flicks of their wands or admiring her, gushing about how happy of an occasion this was. Any moment now, Minerva would come up the staircase and let them know that the ceremony was ready to begin down in the Great Hall.
Once all of the tweaking and touching up was finished, Hermione was able to step down off the podium and walk around the room. She walked over to the full-length mirror (slowly, as the shoes were maddeningly uncomfortable to walk in without falling face-first floorward) at the opposite edge of the room. She gasped when she saw her reflection staring back at her.
The gasp was for many reasons. For one, she could not find a single reason to complain about her hair, which, even with the usual liberal amounts of Sleekeazy's Hair Serum, always had a few stray frizz hairs looks. Secondly, it all came hitting her very hard, seeing herself in the enormous white dress, that she, Hermione Granger, was going to leave her entire past behind the moment she uttered, "I do.' Which led her to the final reason--her locket, the locket, was missing from her neck.
"Where is it?" she asked to herself, pressing the spot where the locket usually hung on her chest.
"Where is what, dear?" asked Mrs. Weasley from across the room. The woman clearly had the keenest senses known to wizardkind.
"Um..." began Hermione sheepishly, "well, it probably seems rather silly, but I was wondering, well... you know that locket I've always worn, right?"
"Oh, that one," said Mrs. Weasley with a certain hint of displeasure in her voice. "I didn't think you would want to wear it with the dress, you know? It certainly wouldn't, er, complement it, wouldn't you say?"
Hermione nearly ignored this comment, saying, "Have you seen it, though?" She began rummaging through a suitcase that she had brought with her, throwing her clothing and accoutrements around in it. After a thorough search, she snapped the suitcase shut with frustration.
"Hermione, stop fussing about," said Mrs Weasley, showing her motherly qualities in full-force. "I know you must be nervous, but you can't go around looking for lost lockets at a time like this! Minerva will be here any second..."
While Hermione let Mrs. Weasley have her rant, she now continued her search around the tables and the floor. In the midst of it, Tonks approached her from the side.
"No luck, eh?" said Tonks in a strangely bright voice.
"No luck," Hermione repeated. "I just really want to find it because... well... it's quite important to me and..."
Tonks eyed her carefully. "Who gave it to you?" she asked, lowering her voice so that Hermione could only hear her.
Taken aback by this question, she avoided Tonks' gaze, which had become particularly harsh and threatening. "It was... well, y-y-you know," she stammered. "That guy I... so long ago... I suppose its a small thing, really..."
The two girls studied each other and tension mounted. Hermione's face was flushing despite the makeup and before she could stop it, her eyes began to tear up slightly. Silence dominated. "Ah," said Tonks, breaking it. Her eyes gleamed with knowing. "My cousin..."
--
Hermione smoothed her hair with her wand, staring at her reflection in the mirror, scanning her face and body and fixing where necessary. Her heart was pounding maddeningly as she stole a glance at the enormous grandfather clock that hung in the room. Turning tot he mirror once again, she fluffed and primped one last time. Satisfied, she took a deep breath and made her way up to Buckbeak's room.
Each step she took on the old rickety staircase seemed to creak louder and louder as she approached the room that had been her safe haven for the past two months. It was a place where she could shamelessly empty her feelings out to a person that truly cared for her. To a person that she also cared about with a growing intensity.
Sure, she tried to tell herself that the man was, indeed, a man. She denied her attraction for the person that helped her figure out her heart when no one else could because of the awkwardness that it would bring. Slowly and surely, however, she let her mind and heart wander. It's a minor thing, she thought, for me to have a slight schoolgirl crush on someone older, isn't it?
Her hand laid upon the doorknob, covered in sweat now, was shaking with trepidation and nervousness that she had not felt since the night of the Yule Ball. With a surge of courage she pushed open the door, only to find Sirius sitting on the floor, arms resting upon his bent knees, head against the wall. The muscle in Hermione's stomach clenched with nerves upon seeing him.
"Well, well, well," he said, turning his head ever so slightly to look at her, the familiar half smile playing upon the corner of his lips. "Are we still having problems of the Krum-my sort or have we moved on?" He used air quotes around "Krum".
Hermione forgot herself entirely and let out a snort of laughter. "That was awful, Sirius," she said, realizing that her laughter choice was not entirely the most attractive one. Inwardly kicking herself, she did not seem to take notice that the man sitting on the floor gave her the eye and looked her over entirely.
"Hey, I don't have a lot to work with, here," he said, gesturing all around him. "I don't have much good around me in this house. What with my mother howling every single time someone opens the door and that lame excuse of an elf--sorry--(Hermione shot him an annoyed glance from above) and the Order keeping me locked up forever..."
Hermione bit her lip. "Surely you enjoy your time with Buckbeak?" she said cautiously, going over to pet the creature after a short bow towards him. "He's such a lovely companion, sometimes I wonder what I would do if I couldn't come up here and--"
"Well don't sell yourself short," he said, interrupting her, running a hand through his hair, ruffling it up and then shaking it to the side (Hermione noticed, that he purposely drew a few pieces in front of his eyes, and bit her lip further, realizing that indeed looked far more attractive with his long hair askew around his face). "Talking to you is the greatest escape from the reality that I need to put up with downstairs with the Order every morning and evening."
"At least you know what's going on," she said in a scoffing tone. It always incensed her to know that she knew so much and so little at the same time about Order-related dealings.
At this, Sirius got up with a strange look in his eye. "Hermione, I would give anything for a bit of ignorance in this matter... to go back and be young again!" He again ruffled his hair roughly, looking at her out of the corners of his eye. "To be going to Hogwarts again and not worrying about You-Know-Who or who is going to be next on the growing list of his victims... and to not be trapped in this godforsaken excuse of a house!" His voice had grown to a shout, now. "To know what it feels like to be free... to be a man..." He was now at the window, staring out at the great blue cloudless sky that laid out overhead.
Hermione took a deep breath and strode over to him, placing a nearly trembling hand on his shoulder. He turned around slowly, facing her, his hair in front of his eyes. She took a single finger and brushed the hair out of his face. Her heart beat in her throat as she opened her mouth to speak, but as she did, he looked up, catching her eyes with his own gaze, and her mouth went dry. Speech had become an impossibility.
His eyes were impossible to read. Was that surprise that she saw in the small creases next to his eyebrows, or was that some sort of apprehension? Was he disgusted with her sudden approach or did he, too, desire a further escape from the pain of the world that they coexisted in for so long...
Sirius tried to stammer out a sentence or two, but nothing registered in Hermione's mind as she gazed into his eyes. His facial expression changed to something just as unreadable as he caught Hermione biting her bottom lip so nervously. Finally, words came forth from his mouth torrentially.
"Hermione, spending time with you these past few weeks have let me go back to my younger years, and I have grown so close to you. Still, however I may feel about you, I feel that if I let this progress to... anything more... well, your innocence is at stake here! If I were to take anything so precious away from you... I would... I could never..." He trailed off, unable to finish.
Hermione bowed her head slightly, losing eye contact with him. When he saw her shoulders tense up, he grabbed her shoulder instinctively. "Are you..." As he tilted her face up by the chin, he expected tears. Instead, he found her laughing, her eyes alight.
"Sirius," she said once she calmed down, "have you not heard anything I've said over the past months? I live in the house where the Order of the Phoenix does business and I try and listen in whenever I possibly can. I dated someone who is now a Death Eater... and then some. I've dueled people and hit people and even hexed a teacher from my school. Whatever innocence I had, Sirius," she said, pausing as his eyes curiously bore into her own, "I lost somewhere in between all of those incidents." She drew closer to him, not breaking eye contact even for a moment. "You've told me so many times that people are brought together and split apart for reasons that are beyond us... are you about to deny that?"
Sirius' mysterious eyes finally broke and a deep longing shown forth in them. "Of course not," he said softly, bringing a finger to her cheek. "I just don't know if it's..."
"When it comes down to it," said Hermione, slowly closing the gap of distance between the two of them, "the only thing that we know for sure are our innermost feelings... and what we do with--"
Sirius suddenly disrupted her mid-sentence, pressing his lips to hers and pulling her body painfully close to his own.
---
Tonks hastily gave Hermione a small handkerchief to wipe her eyes on, eying her with a mixture of emotions. Tonks had come to regard Hermione as a younger sister as she grew older and together, they confided the deepest secrets with each other. She always knew that Hermione had a fling with someone at a younger age, but she never would have guessed it to be her cousin. Her 35 year old cousin, at that. But still... the locket, that tell all look in her eyes as she fretted around for it. The way she teared up every time she saw that one photograph of the four boys...
Hermione wiped her eyes and thanked Tonks. An awkward silence descended.
"I..."
"You don't have to explain anything," said Tonks quickly.
"It wasn't his idea," said Hermione in a hushed voice.
"I'm sure it wasn't, but that doesn't mean he didn't go along wholeheartedly..."
"I wanted him to."
"Why?"
"We had the same problems, it was an escape!"
"You were young!"
"He..." began Hermione, out of breath from whispering so heatedly. "He wanted to be." She sighed heavily, looking Tonks squarely in the eyes. "He never grew up, you know that, Tonks, he never wanted to so he never did."
Tonks, too, sighed.
Professor McGonagall suddenly rushed in, coming between the two women.
"It's time, Hermione," she said with a kind smile.