The Roommate, Chapter 5
A/N: I can't even remember how this works anymore. Hello dear readers, and everyone who's been with this story from the beginning! I really do apologise for the delay between chapters. Life got in the way, what with moving countries and jobs and all. There was a lot going on, but I have never forgotten this story, not even for a moment.
I said (about two years ago), that this was written about people, places and events that have happened to me in real life. That version of myself has since grown up a little bit and experienced a little more of the world, and now, I think there's plenty that's happened to help push this story along.
Part of the growing experience was meeting people. I'm lucky to have a job where I meet the most fascinating people, and I am in a position to listen to them and what they have to say. People inspire stories, and those stories get passed along to inspire other people. I've been very lucky to meet the most colourful variety of personalities, and it is from them that I take the inspiration to write.
Now, enough babble from me. We have a story to continue!
Allez, allez!
"Tell me what happened again."
"You're going to laugh."
"Only a little, I promise."
Hermione huffed, and a lock of hair went flying off her face. "I tried to use a starry-point screwdriver..."
"Phillips," Sirius interrupted, the very faintest of grins lifting the corners of his mouth. Hermione felt the mischief bubbling underneath the surface, but decided not to let it take over just yet.
She glared at him. "I tried to use the Phillips screwdriver, but I didn't see the flat slot," she said, looking to stare at her shoes.
Her hand was wrapped in a napkin, scarlet blooming out of the fabric over the palm of her hand. Physical pain was easy enough to brush off. It was Sirius' sanctimonious air of I-told-you-so that she couldn't seem to take.
The long and short of it was, the screwdriver had slipped out of the hole and straight into her palm as she was putting together that behemoth of a chandelier in the ballroom. She had finally sorted out where the missing bits and bobs were meant to go, and was just a few screws away from a complete fixture.
A few screws away, but no bloody cigar, she thought. Sirius had been minimally helpful. After wrapping up her hand in the napkin, he Floo'd them straight into St Mungo's, where they were now seated in the emergency room. It was embarrassing enough that she had to be hustled into the emergency rooms like a damsel in distress. It was worse that Sirius could barely stop laughing as he explained what had happened. There wasn't much to do in there except wait, among the minor accidents that didn't need immediate attention.
A young woman was seated next to Hermione, quietly weeping into a tartan handkerchief. Her entire face was covered in feathers, and she let out a little hoot when she exhaled. Across Sirius, a young man had dragged himself through the door, stuck arse-first into a cauldron followed by his flustered mother. Next to them, Hermione almost stopped feeling sorry for herself.
"But for all intents and purposes Miss Granger, I think you did very well for yourself, putting together that thing. I honestly thought I would have to send Kreacher in for reinforcements, but you seemed to have done all right," Sirius said, patting her shoulder.
"Plus we'll have a fantastic story to tell our guests. It's shaping up to be a very good party indeed!"
Hermione turned her head and looked at him. "Are you seriously going to tell other people about this?", she quietly asked.
Sirius knew that he'd said something wrong. You don't spend a lifetime playing Casanova without learning a thing or two about women.
"...yes?"
"You are fucking unbelievable Sirius Black. This is not funny. This," she said, shoving her bloody hand under his nose "...is not a story you trot out at a party with our friends. I may not know how to use a screwdriver, and I am quite frankly surprised that the chandelier has not fallen on anybody yet. So if that's what you wanted to hear, there it is. But it is not fucking funny!" Hermione snapped.
What he did next was unthinkable. Sirius burst out laughing, in the gasping, can't feel my sides way. He howled, slapping his knee. All the patients in the room were glowering at him now. The feather-covered lady next to Hermione let out a deep hoot, staring at him from over her handkerchief.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to be quieter," a nurse said to him from her desk at the entrance. "Can't...stop...chandelier..."Sirius, howled, tears streaming down his face.
The nurse was not amused. She scribbled quickly on a piece of paper and shoved it at Hermione. "Miss, I'm afraid but you have to leave. Your companion is disturbing our patients. If you take this to the Muggle hospital across town, they will treat you. And while you're at it, you might want to rethink your relationship with this man. I hear the psychiatric ward has a few beds free this time of year."
Hermione couldn't believe it. How could she, a respected academic, go from sabbatical to being shown out of St Mungo's emergency room?
"Thank you ma'am," was all she muttered out as she made her way out the door, Sirius behind her.
She managed a few steps away from him before he finally caught his breath. "Hermione. Hey, Hermione!" He said, coming up to walk beside her. "We don't need to be here, we can just clean it up and bandage it and..."
"And nothing Sirius Black! I am going to the Muggle hospital to get this treated and I am going to get a backup tetanus shot. You are going to go home and leave me the fuck alone!" She snapped, turning around to fume in his face. That got his attention. Sirius knew she wasn't just annoyed at him anymore.
"This isn't a big deal. Accidents happen all the time Hermione, you are allowed to have them. Yes, it's embarrassing that the great Hermione Granger can't use a screwdriver. But it makes you look human next to us, and that's great," he said.
Hermione's shoulders just slumped as she shook her head. "You are being incredibly patronising Sirius. I don't even know what to say to you anymore. I don't even know why we're having this damn party in the first place," she said, before disappearing in a puff.
It would have been comical to finish the conversation like that, but Sirius knew that this was a fault he could not fix with flowers and wine. Patronising, she had said. All he wanted to do was poke fun at her and reassure himself that she wasn't perfect.
Like that was easy to do.
The last few weeks had been wearing hard on him and his self-control. Every day that she walked down from her room, every night that she spent reading in the big chair was a test. He tried to ignore the way her hair fluffed up when she woke, so reminiscent of what a thoroughly-debauched woman looks like. He tried to ignore the little motions her lips made when she was absorbed in a book. They reminded him of little kisses and how they might feel against his skin.
But most of all, he could no longer ignore how her wit so easily matched his own. He'd always thought himself a clever man, mincing words with incomparable skill. But to Hermione, that came as naturally to her as breathing. She knew just what to say to him to set his teeth on the edge or to split his side laughing. He had never been so challenged mentally before, and certainly not from any of his former housemates.
As he made his way home, Sirius found himself contemplating how he was going to apologise. It wasn't going to be easy; every word she had said was right. A woman like her would never take well to being laughed at, much less spoken down to. He should have known better than to prick at her wounded pride like that.
When Hermione finally made it home that night, she was in a mood that made a dragon look cuddly. She had just spent hours at the Muggle hospital waiting room to be attended to. It would have taken St Mungo's seconds to repair the wound, but alas, Muggle medicine had not quite caught up. Her tetanus shot had not been fun either, so all she wanted to do now was make a cup of tea and have it in bed.
Crookshanks appeared at the foyer, meowing for his supper and. The ginger cat may have gotten older, but he hadn't lost his penchant for being extremely vocal about what he wanted. She knew she had to act quickly, or risk a fresh scratching on her legs.
"Hush, fuzzbutt. I'm not going anywhere," she muttered, more to herself than the cat. Crookshanks wove himself around her ankles before leading the way into the kitchen. Hermione went through the motions of putting food and water into his dishes before putting on the kettle on to boil for herself.
Chamomile for a hurt stomach, peppermint for a hurt pride, her mother used to say to her. Hermione reached for the container of peppermint tea and dropped the little teabag into her mug. The hum of the wind through the chimney, and the happy purring sound Crookshanks was making helped soothe her a little bit.
She could take Sirius poking fun at her all the time. She could even understand that he was actually doing better than she was at planning this party. But what she couldn't take, was being made fun of.
She hated being bullied for most of her time at school. It wasn't that she chose to be clever and bookish; a childhood with no siblings and busy parents decided that for her. What's more, she found a solace in books that no living person had come close to providing. It hadn't come easy, being this successful. Hours and hours spent in the library when everyone else was at a party cemented her image as the bookworm know-it-all who talked like she swallowed the dictionary.
At least her work as an academic allowed her some respect. She had worked hard to get where she was, and for once in her life, she felt like she was right where she belonged. It didn't matter anymore that she spent most of her time reading or studying; it simply meant that she didn't have to justify it to anyone anymore.
Her bed was already turned down and warming up. Kreacher insisted on doing this for her, despite her protests that she could do it herself. The house elf treated her with the utmost respect, never having forgotten that she was the first to be kind to him.
For tonight however, she was too upset to be embarrassed. She changed into her pyjamas and slid beneath the warmed sheets, propping herself up against the pillows. With her cup of tea in hand, she nursed her fuming hurt in silence.
About an hour later, well after the tea was gone, Hermione heard a soft knock at the door. Kreacher normally let himself in, so Hermione had to haul herself out of bed to check. Funny, last I checked Crookshanks hadn't grown opposable thumbs, she thought.
Sirius was on the other side. Her first instinct was to shut the door in his face, but her furry ginger decided to wedge himself between the frame and the door hoping someone would pet him.
"Go away. I don't want to talk to you," she snapped.
"Hermione please, I'm sorry. I just wanted to check that you were okay," Sirius said, pushing his shoulder against the door. Crookshanks had walked into the room and perched himself on the bed, sulking at being ignored. "I'm fine, and I got my shot. The doctor said I'll be okay tomorrow, then I can finish that damn chandelier," Hermione huffed, stepping back. Sirius took a step inside, but seeing Hermione's lifted chin made him reconsider coming closer. "We don't have to finish it tomorrow, it's no problem..." he began.
"That's not an option. The party is in a few days, and it needs to be up before the caterers come in. God, Blaise Zabini would split in half laughing at me. No, I'm finishing it tomorrow and then I will stay out of your way," she said. The finality was in her voice, Sirius could hear. Only an act of god would sway it.
Or perhaps a white flag waved in truce would work.
"Hermione, I didn't come here to make you feel worse. I need your help with something," he said. A silence stretched out between them, vast and uneasy.
"What with? I can't imagine there's anything I can help you with, you know how to do it all," she replied, meaning every drop of sarcasm. Pettiness was a new taste to Hermione, and it was one that she was slowly discovering she liked.
"I deserved that. Truly, I did. I should not have laughed at you. I didn't think it was mean until you left me at Saint Mungo's, and now I know that I shouldn't have even started."
"I'm sorry for making you feel bad instead of helping you. And now I feel like even more of an ass for asking you to help me with something." It wasn't perfect by means of an apology, but if it got her to follow him downstairs then it will have worked.
"Can Kreacher do it?"
"He's not very pleased with me at the moment. I can see whose side he's taken on this. Unlike with you, I have to earn his being nice to me," Sirius shrugged.
Hermione let herself savour the begging in his voice before giving in. "I feel like you won't leave it until I say yes, so all right. What do you need?"
"Come downstairs with me," Sirius said, taking her by the wrist and walking with her out the door.
Hermione allowed herself to be led to where the chandelier lay among its final few pieces.
"Why am I here?," she asked.
Sirius picked up the screwdriver and gently nudged Hermione into a chair. "I want you to tell me how to finish this," he said.
Now she was truly confused. "I said I'd do it, and there isn't much left to finish anyway - "
"I know. You also know that I can do this with my eyes closed. But I'm telling you now, I need your help." Sirius said.
He wasn't wrong about this. In the time it had taken to convince her to follow him down he could have finished it and polished off a few glasses of scotch in the comfortable silence of his library.
Hermione honestly wasn't sure what was going on, but she was sure there was an apology in there somewhere.
"You can put that down Sirius, I'm finishing that tomorrow," she said, rising up to stand next to him. He was forming a protest when she stopped him. "I need to finish this myself. When the chandelier goes up I want to be able to say that I did it. That's the story I want to share with our friends."
"But you're hurt. And I'd really rather you not be within reach of that screwdriver while you're still mad at me," he added, trying to make her smile.
Oh sod it, the man knew just how to weaken her ire.
"It wouldn't be unwarranted," she mumbled at him.
"I know. And I'm sorry. I should be less of an ass. You should know that you are the most capable person that we all know, despite stabbing yourself in the hand. Nobody would think any less of you," he said, coming closer to hold her injured hand. The bandage wrapped around the palm was lightly stained red, but he lifted it to his lips and kissed it once. Just a little kiss, like the ones you gave a scraped knee.
He didn't miss how her breath caught in her throat. Acting purely on instinct, he moved her arm a little bit so his lips brushed the pulse in her wrist.
"Sirius," he heard her inhale before she pulled her hand back. His eyes flicked up to meet hers, jarred by the sudden movement.
"I think it's time to say goodnight. I'll see you in the morning," she pushed out before turning around and disappearing to her bedroom. Her abrupt departure left Sirius with an ache that he didn't even know was throbbing in his chest.
Capable my ass, he thought. That woman is downright disarming.
A/N: Here we are, with another chapter! If we are meeting for the first time, welcome and I hope you enjoyed what you've read so far. I will do my best to keep on top of this story because between you and, I can't wait to see how this one ends.
