Confession

A/N: Hi! Wow, you guys, those reviews were WONDERFUL! You seriously make me just too happy... I'm honest. I'm very excited, reason why I'm hurrying with the updates... I hope you'll like this chapter just as much as the last one. Without further ado... Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Nope. JK created them, and I'm simply borrowing them for my plot.

"You've been the only thing that's right
in all I've done.

To think I might not see those eyes
makes it so hard not to cry
and as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do.

Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear..."

"Run"- Snow Patrol.

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He couldn't articulate a single word. In fact, he was sure that the floor under him had just been removed. Surely his hearing had been damaged? He couldn't have heard correctly. That couldn't be the truth. That just couldn't be the reason she was dead; it was simply impossible. Harry stared back at him in silence, his green eyes full of sadness so deep that it even surprised Sirius. And he had been in Azkaban for twelve years, so that was saying quite a lot. In fact, that sorrow in his godson's eyes made him wonder if Harry's feelings for Hermione had not ran deeper than just friendship...

"Why would she do that?" Sirius finally asked barely above a whisper, for his lungs had apparently decided that he shouldn't get enough oxygen to raise his voice. The situation was just too obtuse; too irrational... Too unexpected.

"We don't know," Harry replied in the same voice, looking away.

"But... The Veil?" Had Sirius been a girl, he would have squeaked the question. It was simply... He couldn't understand why someone like Hermione would do such thing.

"It wasn't the first time," Harry confessed, not raising his eyes. The pain in his voice dug into Sirius's skin like a needle. "She had an overdose months before she jumped. I guess that- that she knew that the Veil was the quickest way... That we wouldn't be able to save her..." he added, and his voice broke. Sirius breathed in deeply and sat down next to Harry on the couch; not knowing what to say. What had driven her to take her own life? What had acted as the trigger?

"I'm sorry," Sirius whispered in the end, breaking the depressed silence that had fallen upon them. His godson would never be able to see how sorry his godfather really was, and that contributed to Sirius's hurt and remorse. Harry nodded next to him, still gazing at the floor, and neither of them spoke anymore.

After all, there wasn't much left to be said.

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Sirius entered his room and locked the door behind him; fisting one hand in his hair to push it back as he heavily leaned against the now closed door. After that talk with Harry, he had gone out for a walk, a very long walk... Truth to be told, he had needed to get out of there to reorganize his maddening thoughts and feelings.

She... Hermione... She didn't kill herself because of him, right?

Sirius closed his eyes at this thought, his brow furrowing. She had tried twice... Her overdose occurred months before he revived. But if that was so, why had she chosen the Veil, among all the existing ways to commit suicide? Forcibly, her death had to be connected with him. "Please love... Tell me I'm wrong. I'll never be happier to be mistaken..." he suddenly muttered, covering his face with his hands. If only Hermione could hear him; if only she could return! If only she was alive... Sirius uncovered his face and determinately walked towards his bedside table, sitting on the bed as he opened the lower drawer. On top of a tattered brown shoe box rested the picture Tonks had taken them back in Harry's fifth year. The look of happiness in Hermione's face made his heart shrink. Having the knowledge of what would be happening to her four years after that photograph was taken made her smile seem fake and forced.

With a sigh he carefully laid the picture on his side and moved to open the shoe box- the last time he had opened it had been a few months before he passed beyond the Veil. Inside, many yellow and old parchments piled up, and on top of them, the picture of Lily's and James's wedding. He placed that one over the other photograph and stared at the parchments that rested inside that box with a mixture of melancholy and nostalgia in his gray eyes. Letters from Hermione... A birthday card she had sent him... The Christmas card she had given him. Anguish enveloped Sirius like a shadow as he reread the letters, recognizing the neat handwriting, and all of a sudden felt like crying. No tears wet his eyes, but he felt sore inside... Hollow.

When Hermione had told him she loved him, Sirius had not known what to do. Loving someone is a big thing. It requires commitment, strength, courage... Among other things. She couldn't love him. Loving him would have meant tying herself to him, and Sirius, quite simply, would not let her waste her precious youth on him. She was too beautiful, inside and out, and he was just a retired Marauder. It had killed him to break things up with her, but she was just too young... She had a life to experience.

So if he had felt like that at that time... If he had cared so much... Would anyone care to explain why he had come to realize, five years later, that he had also fallen in love with her after that sinful kiss in the kitchen? Sirius wanted to hit himself and scream. But what use was it, anyway, if Hermione was no longer among the living?

A knock on the door startled him, and almost made him drop all the letters he was holding.

"Who is it?" He asked, hastily putting all the letters and pictures inside the box again. He'd never take them out again, from this point on. Ever.

"Moony," came the reply, muffled by the door.

"Come in," Sirius replied; just as he was grabbing the box to return it to its rightful place, Lupin entered the room. He eyed the box curiously.

"What's that?"

"A shoe box," Sirius told him, quickly placing it inside the drawer and closing the small door. Lupin half smiled as he reached for a chair that was near the window.

"Inside of it," he clarified, placing the chair in front of Sirius, who avoided his gaze.

"Just some old papers..." he trailed off. Lupin nodded but didn't question him any further, for a short while.

"What-"

"Why didn't you tell me about Hermione?" Sirius cut him off, glaring at him. Lupin raised his eyebrows and then sighed, crossing his arms as he leaned against the chair.

"Because of how she killed herself," Lupin answered in a soft voice. "Because you have just proved my point." He added.

"Point? What point?" Sirius snarled, frowning. What kind of explanation was that?

"I'm not stupid, you know," Lupin calmly said, leaning in slightly.

"You had me fooled, Moony," Sirius replied dramatically.

"Don't try to change the subject, Sirius." The seriousness in this statement made Sirius frown, but he didn't say anything. "I was not fooled by your alibi during Harry's and Hermione's fifth year, on that Christmas dinner. When you fell through the Veil, and I saw Hermione again at the end of their seventh year, she was still devastated about it. Then she came to live here. I don't know if he told you, but Harry found Hermione in this very room, drugged, on several occasions," Lupin began explaining. Sirius's eyed widened, but he didn't give any signs of wanting to interrupt, so Lupin continued. "Tonks gave her the present you had for her, which I had neglected over the years. Hermione never took that bracelet off... And nine months after Christmas she throws herself through the Veil, Sirius. It wasn't hard to put two and two together." Sirius looked away at these words.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he finally replied in a mutter. He knew perfectly well that he had been discovered, but it didn't hurt to keep up with the pretence. Maybe, if he was convincing enough, Lupin would give him a break.

"I won't tell Harry," Lupin told him gently. "If a time comes that he has to know, it'll your job to explain everything to him."

"I don't need to explain anything to Harry; nothing happened," Sirius attempted to carry on with the mask. "Are you going somewhere with this?" He questioned Lupin heatedly.

"Certainly." Lupin retorted firmly. "Because I have more than one reason to believe that Hermione sacrificed herself to bring you back."

Sirius stared at Lupin, and Lupin stared back at Sirius.

"Is that supposed to make me feel any better?" Sirius asked bitterly. Another burden on his shoulders, how nice... As if the loss and the pain weren't enough.

"No," Lupin honestly replied.

"What do you want me to say, then?" Sirius spat, glaring at him; he felt angry, betrayed, and guilty. "What else do you want from me, Remus?"

"The truth."

"FINE!" Sirius shouted, incensed. "Yes, I had an affair with her! There, are you happy now? Or you'll make me feel even more heartless?" He said. "Go ahead; tell everyone about it, because I DON'T REGRET IT! I don't care if it was wrong, I don't care if you feel revolted, I don't care if you hate me!"

"Calm down-"

"Oh, now you want me to calm down??" Sirius barked, standing up. "You've just told me that there's a chance that Hermione killed herself because of me, and you didn't even flinch! How do you think that that information makes me feel?!" Sirius bellowed, ready to strangle his old friend. How could he be so cold?

"So you love her back, I see," Lupin replied, staring up at him from the chair. Sirius opened his mouth to reply, but in the end decided against it. Instead he just looked at Lupin, breathing heavily and with his cheeks ablaze, trying to calm down.

"So the fuck what if I do?" He retorted roughly. Lupin shrugged.

"Nothing. You're forgetting that I'm the boyfriend of someone fifteen years younger than me," he told him. "Hermione was too young, though..."

"I know, thank you," Sirius spat, blushing again. He didn't need anyone to rub it on his face. "And in case you're wondering, we didn't fuck," he added, saving Lupin the embarrassment of asking for such a personal scrap of information.

"Could you be any cruder, Padfoot?" Lupin asked, unfazed.

"I'll be as crude as I please," Sirius retorted. He knew it wasn't a very mature thing to say, but honestly, he didn't give a damn.

"I won't judge you, whatever the case," Lupin said. "If she gave her consent to the whole deal, then she wanted it too... Will you tell Harry?"

"I don't think he needs to know." Sirius responded. "Hermione has passed away, and adding another burden to Harry's grief, like you just did to mine, won't make her come back." He wasn't going to forgive Remus so easily. "What difference did it make, Remus? What good is it to anyone that you think Hermione killed herself because of me? I didn't need to know that."

"Not killed herself. Sacrificed," Lupin corrected him. Sirius shot daggers at him with his eyes, but Moony didn't seem to care. "Harry says that Hermione had a book-"

"More than one, if I recall her personality correctly," Sirius interrupted, smiling slightly at the memory of that lovely bookworm. Lupin rolled his eyes.

"A special book, idiot; called The Veiled Mysteries," Lupin continued. "Maybe it can tell us something about the Veil. If my theory is correct, and Hermione was the one that indeed brought you back, there's still hope that she can also come back." Sirius's brow furrowed at this.

"I doubt it... Where is that book?" he wanted to know, sitting down on the bed again. He didn't dare let his hopes go up... He didn't want to fool himself with wistful expectations...

"Hermione's room."

"Have you read it?" Sirius asked, ignoring the knot in his throat at the mention of her room. Lupin shook his head. As Sirius opened his mouth to speak, a loud sneeze could be heard from the other side of the door, in the hallway. Lupin frowned and Sirius snapped his eyes in direction of the door, springing up like hit by lightening. "Did you cast a Silencio on the room??" He asked, suddenly horrified. Lupin put his hand on his forehead and once again quickly shook his head in uncertainty.

"No," he answered.

Shortly after he had spoken, an audible gasp was heard. From the sound, the eavesdropper had just discovered that he or she had been caught.

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A/N: And yet another one posted. I hope that it's good! I'm eager to please you guys with this story... I loved writing this chapter, especially Sirius's confession. You know what I ask in return: a review, to be able to know what you think!

On another note, I opened a my space account where I posted a wallpaper I did for this story, among other things, so if you're interested, check out my profile!

Until next chapter!