Chapter 26: The Bond
AN: Angsty angsty angst! Because, in my mind, these are two of the most stubborn people in the Potterverse and when they really go at it, it has to be a no-holds barred, knock-down, drag-out, bare-knuckled, below-the-belt, nonsensical, repetitive, opinionated, blinkered, raging maelstrom of a fight. You can let me know in the comments who you think is right (if either of them!), because I gave up trying to taking sides about half-way through.
When I first began to write this scene - ages ago! - it had a happy little bow of an ending on it. Fluffy and sweet. Then I sat down at the keyboard and it went in completely the opposite direction. I'm sure many of you know exactly what that's like. Apparently, this Hermione was not going to wake up and have an easy Disney Princess ending slapped onto her story without questioning what on earth had happened in the meantime.
If you've made it this far with this favourite pair of mine, I do hope you'll stick around for the ending.
Harry leaned forward to touch Hermione's hand. She seized it back to her chest as if he were a snake.
"Hermione," said Harry, "I know this isn't—"
"Get out."
"What?" he asked, perplexed.
Hermione refused to look at her best friend as she spoke in a low, haunted voice. Her eyes were locked on Sirius. "Harry, get out. Now."
"You can't be—"
"NOW!"
Harry took a step back, while Sirius only sighed. Shaking his head, the older wizard drew the younger man away from the sick bed towards the door. "Best to do what she wants, Harry. Looks like Tonks might have been bang on about her first reaction. Give us a minute, yeah?"
Harry peered around Sirius' shoulder towards the bed. "How many minutes?" he asked in a worried tone.
"If she drags my bleeding carcass out of the room, you'll have waited too long."
"That's not funny," whispered Harry. "She might do it."
Sirius exhaled deeply. "I know. Wait to see what colour smoke is coming from the chimney, and then move on that."
Harry's attention snapped back to his godfather. "What's that?"
"Isn't that a Muggle expression?" asked Sirius.
"I don't think so."
Growling softly, Sirius twisted his mouth to one side. "Somewhere, your mother is having a right laugh at me just now. Lily'd told me—" He paused, and then continued, "Never mind. If I haven't given you the all-clear in ten minutes, send in the reinforcements. Maybe Luna, if she's still somewhere about. I don't think she'd commit grievous bodily harm in front of Luna."
Harry blinked. "Maybe now is not the time to test that theory."
Sirius nodded towards the exit. "We'll be out soon."
As soon as Harry had left, Sirius cast a silencio on the room and then pocketed his wand. He braced himself before turning around. This wasn't going to be pleasant.
His expectations were swiftly met when Hermione skewered him with an evil look before he could take a single step. "You still haven't answered my question," she said. "What did you do?"
"Do I even have to answer that?"
"I want to hear you say it," she ground out. "Say it, Sirius."
"Fine," he retorted, moving closer. "What did I do? I saved your life. We all saved your life."
Her eyes continued to bore into him. "How?"
"You were dying. You needed a transfusion. When I gave you my magic, it solidified our soul bond."
"Our—? Our what?"
He watched as she stiffly crossed her arms. Sirius took an extra beat before responding. "Did you really not know?"
Breathing heavily, Hermione refused to answer. She cast her eyes about the room. Sirius could see her taking in the bare walls, the low ceiling, the pale winter sunlight shining in through the large windows. The only real colour in the room came from half a dozen crystal vases along the window-ledge, each holding a massive floral bouquet. Sirius had made sure that her favourite flowers would be in the room when she woke up.
That kind of effort seemed a bit pointless now.
"I've been here five days?" she asked finally.
"Since the transfusion. Colin's premiere was… almost a week ago."
"Were you hurt? That night?"
Sirius hesitated, thinking of how to answer. "Sure," he said softly, as he gingerly moved to sit on the side of the bed. "Of course, I was. That damn drape nearly ripped me apart, and then Harry had a go – inadvertently, but still. Then I was out for almost another two days after they gave you my magic. We were in here together. I was just there. The whole time." He pointed to a now-empty bed lying closer to the window. It was clear from the wrinkles and depressions on its top sheet that someone had been sitting on it very recently.
"And then…?"
He gave her a twisted smile. "And then I woke up and you didn't, and I refused to leave."
Hermione took another deep breath, running her fingers over the palm and back of her right hand. "Why does my hand hurt so much?"
"Ah," grimaced Sirius. "You feel it too? That's where they connected us. Mine was sore until yesterday."
Her eyes tore into him again. "Are you telling me that the healers activated a soul bond between us that I didn't even know existed, and they did it by making us hold hands?"
"What are you getting so riled about?" he asked sharply. "Hand rites are fairly standard magical practice. This was just… an advanced kind. Very advanced." He sighed before adding, "It took a long time before you were stable. Didn't have enough of me in you yet."
Sirius realised what he had said at the same time she did. He winced at his own stupidity as Hermione's nostrils flared. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I promise."
Ignoring his faux-pas, the young woman in the hospital bed sniffed loudly. "You don't seem in much pain now."
"I hide it better than you do."
"No, you don't."
There was something about her tone that touched something off inside of him. All of the raw emotions he had been feeling for the last week – the highs and lows that he'd had to experience all alone, without her awake and living through it with him – had swirled around silently for days, but now they began to boil and froth, his temper creeping steadily upwards.
"You're a smart girl, 'Mione. The smartest I've ever known. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that you never wondered even once if what we felt for each other didn't run deeper? If there wasn't something truly magical between us?"
"Magical…" she echoed.
"We've been soul-bonded since the night Remus and Kingsley brought me back. You know it."
Sniffing again, she looked away from him, turning her face toward the farthest corner of the room. "I—I don't like talking about those kinds of things."
"I know that and I'm sorry, but things are different now. You have to open yourself up to this. It's so bloody obvious, isn't it – what's between us? It'll take you time to get used to the bond. It's a lot, I know, but please, don't push me away. I'm right here. Let me in."
He had a vague memory of having said nearly the same thing to her in front of the Veil, but the precise details of those panicked minutes in the Death Chamber before he took Hermione's place were rather scattered.
She scowled at him, but Sirius refused to back down. He needed her to realise what the bond was truly like. If she could just sense it, accept it, then maybe they had a chance of walking out of this hospital together, instead of alone and in pieces.
"Please," he urged.
Holding his breath, Sirius felt her begin to open up the slightest bit; a warm channel broadened and ran through him as he gained a tiny sample of the bond's heat flowing back and forth between them.
He nearly groaned with pleasure as the intensity of their joining rocked through him. It could be so good – it would be so good…
But then Hermione banged down her inner walls, visibly struggling on the bed as the physical and emotional weight of their combined souls overwhelmed her.
Sirius saw her face screw up in pain. He knew what was happening, knew it was suffocating her, and sadly accepted that the next few hours would be very different for her than they had been for him.
Waking up from the transfusion days ago, he had known to expect that something would have changed in how he felt, in how he took in the world and his place in it; she hadn't. Even for him, it had been totally jarring at first – and that had been with Hermione still out, her emotions only making the barest ripple across his own consciousness.
It wasn't like that now. She was getting him full on.
Taking a half-second to close himself off to her – even though it bloody well hurt – he then cringed visibly as she began to whimper.
"I can't—I'm not su—just… no! No! I can't do this!"
Brushing her hair back behind her shoulder, Sirius gave her a small smile. "Yes, you can," he whispered. "You're Hermione Granger, and you can do anything. You've turned back time. You've taken on Death – literally – and are still here to tell the tale. You've survived Voldemort and my psychotic cousin and a thousand other slights I don't know anything about yet… and you're still the most incredible creature I have ever known."
On instinct, he took her sore hand and raised it to his mouth so that he could press his lips against it. Hermione's eyes filled with tears. Briefly, she turned her hand to cup his cheek in her palm. He could feel his uneven beard rasp against her soft skin.
They were so close together at that moment, he could tell the instant that she broke. Her hand slipped down from his face as her voice cracked. "Sirius. I can't—I… I'd like you to leave. Please."
"You don't mean that," he said. "Merlin, I know you don't mean that!"
Staring at the white coverlet on the hospital bed, she whispered, "I don't want to see you right now."
He couldn't believe it. "'Mione! It's not that simple! You can't just lie to me like that now. Every bone in my body is telling me something differ—"
"Leave!" she cried out. "Please!"
He stood up, but refused to leave her side. "Don't you get it? Things aren't like that anymore. I can tell—"
She cut him off again. "Go away! Now! I don't want you here!"
"Liar."
"You're enjoying this," she said lowly as she looked up at him.
"Hardly."
"You are! I'm all lost and confused, and you are so far ahead of me in this—"
"I'm really not."
"—and I need you to go."
"Why?"
"Because you wanted something like this to happen!" she said shrilly. "I can feel that. Am I wrong?"
"Of course, you are!" he shouted back immediately. "Why in Godric's name would I ever want something like this to happen to you? Do you have any idea what it's been like, waiting for you to die? That's how close it's been, Hermione. For days! We were bare seconds away from losing you in the Death Chamber. Fewer, actually. First Colin saved you, and then Tonks and Kingsley, and then me, and then an entire sodding hospital of healers, and then me again. So, if you feel anything from me coming through this bond, it's total relief that you're still here!"
Hermione bit her lips, clearly torn. "And?" she asked tremulously.
"And I'm furious!" he barked, finally voicing his frustrations. "I'm angrier with you now than I think I've ever been with anyone before in my life! I've never felt such a need to give you a good, proper bollocking for being such an idiot!"
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't speak to me that way."
"Why not?" shouted Sirius. "The soul bond wouldn't have needed to be tapped so early if you hadn't gone off on some damn foolish quest to—"
"To save you!"
"—to try and destroy something that you bloody well knew is goddamn indestructible. What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"Saving your life, you ungrateful wretch!" Hermione's eyes blazed up at him. But instead of giving him pause, they just goaded him further.
"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't need saving?"
"Yes, you do! You always do! Let's count the rescues, shall we?" she sniped, checking them off one by one on her fingers. "Snape in the Shrieking Shack, the Dementors at the lake, the tower with Buckbeak, you being tortured by Voldemort—"
"That wasn't even real!" thundered Sirius.
Hermione rolled on, ignoring him. "Then Remus and Kingsley freeing you from the Veil, and then the other night, once Colin and I found out you're a… a—"
"A Revenant," said Sirius, finishing her thought.
"If you had just told me about the pain you were having, then I could have—"
"I'm sorry," he interrupted hotly, "this is all somehow my fault?! What kind of—"
"You did this without me!"
"You left me no choice!"
Standing by her bed, Sirius thought he had never felt more exasperated. With one look at her crackling hair and furious glare, he saw that she felt no different. More than that, however, he knew Hermione felt the same way, because somehow, deep down, the base of his spine and somewhere at the front of his chest echoed with an intense ferocity that was entirely foreign to the rest of his body.
Merlin, was he ever going to get used to—
"Um? Guys? Do you, ah, need… anything?"
"Out!" they bellowed together at a chagrined-looking Harry, who had dared to intrude.
Eyes nearly bugging out of his head, Harry nodded and then backed out of the room just as quickly as he had come in.
They both waited until the snib on the door audibly latched behind him on his way out.
Alone again, a still-incensed Sirius stared at the foot of Hermione's bed, refusing to cast his gaze any higher. Waiting for her to say something – anything – he noticed that his teeth were beginning to ache from his jaw being held so tight.
When Hermione finally did speak, her voice was as sharp as broken glass. "How dare you invoke our soul bond like this?"
"Oh, so now you believe we have one, do you?" asked Sirius sarcastically.
"That's beside the point. Whether or not I believed in it before now—"
"Or even wanted to," he muttered.
"And you did?"
"I have only ever wanted you, you mad witch!" he yelled, his hands pulling at the empty air around him. "When you were hanging there in front of me, nearly dead, I wanted you. When you were lying there in that bed, practically a ghost, I was choking from how much I needed you! When you walk down a hallway, or climb a staircase in front of me, or bloody fucking breathe, I want you!"
Barely able to see straight, he sat roughly on the bed again. "Do you have any idea what it's been like this past week, not knowing if you'd ever wake up? Knowing that we're bonded and that's what sent you off to the Veil in the first place? If I wasn't your soulmate, none of this would have happened!" Sirius' voice shook with the pain he'd held inside for the past week. "Can't you tell what I'm going through? I'm in hell! I've been alone with the power of this bond for the past five days, praying to every god I can think of that you would open your eyes, pacing up and down for any sign that you were coming back to me, hoping against every goddamn hope that, if you did, you wouldn't lash out as soon as you realised what had happened." His voice dropped to a low whisper. "You're killing me, love."
Hermione shook her head, her flattened curls bouncing in the washed-out light of the room. "I didn't ask for this," she pointed out, holding up her right hand and then cradling it to her chest as it began to smart. Sirius knew it was hurting, because a strange twinge danced across the back of his own hand in answer to hers.
"No, you didn't. I did. I asked them to use me to save you."
"Why would you do that?" she pressed.
"Why?" His eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. "Because you're mine!" he roared. "And, more importantly, I am yours!" On impulse, he reached out and clasped the hand that she had been holding against her chest, pressing their bare palms together. "This proves it. So, why are you shutting me out?"
In one harsh move, Hermione ripped her hand away from him.
"All this proves," she seethed, "is that you made up your mind about the rest of my life."
"I could hardly ask for your opinion when you were unconscious," snapped Sirius. "A choice had to be made. I'm sorry you're not happier about it."
She breathed quickly through her nose several times. "Do you have any idea what it's like, to wake up and find you've been betrayed?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," he fumed.
"Not like this. Sirius, how could you do this? After all the things you said to me? Not two months ago, you were at my throat for even mentioning that I wanted to feel bound to you. Connected. Remember? I wanted to understand this… feeling… we've both had since—"
"Since I came back."
"Yes!"
"Well, now we know, don't we?"
"But you didn't want it!" insisted Hermione. "You didn't want me to feel joined to you like that – and you didn't want to feel that way about me, either."
Sirius pulled his mouth to one side. "You're forgetting something, pet. I said that to you at the beginning of that night. By the end of it, I was fucking you." He saw her blanch slightly at his coarse words. "I warned you," he continued, his eyes narrowing. "I told you that I was rash and impulsive. I also told you that sex changes things. And it did for us." His eyes fell shut at the thought. "Sweet Circe, it did. Don't you remember?"
Flashing back to the feeling of slowly sliding inside her tight, impossibly hot sheath that very first time, Sirius felt a deep throb in his groin and at the bottom of his spine that nearly knocked him off course. As his eyes fluttered open again, a small, soothing voice at the back of his mind urged him to follow that feeling instead of all the others battling away inside him – to tamp down the wrath swiftly rising through the rest of his body…
But he was still a Black.
Wrath won.
"You didn't want the connection before," continued Hermione, "but now you did this?"
"How in the name of all the Furies could I not? I refused to let you die when I knew I could save you. Why can't you understand that?"
Sirius watched her take a deep breath, his gaze lingering on the rise and fall of the breath beneath her breastbone.
"You might care for me," she began. "Maybe even love me. I don't know. But this—Sirius, you took part of my soul!"
"No." His voice was definite. "The Veil did that. It drained your magic. I did the flipping opposite! In fact, if either of us should be irked right now about who took what, it should be me – because you took part of mine."
And maybe, continued that soft, saner voice in his mind, that was why she was so muddled at the moment. Because Hermione had him in her head now, his emotions running above and below her skin, storming through her like some gothic beast. All his nightmares, all his rage, all his frustration... he had foisted all of that on her without the least bit of warning.
But another part of him wouldn't let that kind of explanation stand. Because, if that were true, then she really might hate him forever. If she truly knew everything he had exposed her to by sharing his magic with her, and couldn't stand it, then he had made such a mistake.
But if he hadn't done it… she would be dead.
The impossibility of their situation filled Sirius' mouth with a bitter tang while the silence continued to hang between them, filling every space in the room.
Hermione bowed her head, her lips pressed tightly together. Her eyes became glued to the sheets covering her legs. "This is all too much for me right now," she said, not moving her gaze. "I can't take it in."
"I know it's all new," said Sirius, leaning forward again. "I'm only a few hours ahead of you in it, love. But, I promise, we'll figure it out. All of it."
He waited long seconds for any kind of answer, but she still refused to look up.
Instantly agitated, he barked, "Is it so bad to be with me? Weren't we headed for this already?"
She still refused to look at him. Panic gripped him.
"Merlin, 'Mione! Sharing my magic with you didn't create the bond. It—it perfected it." Sirius then swallowed a half-laugh and looked away, stricken. "Maybe it was perfect before. Maybe I've destroyed it. But," he added, turning back to her, "it was there, all these months. I couldn't have walked through Colin's spell to reach you if we hadn't already been meant for each other. Don't you know that?"
Her gaze finally lifted, and then shot straight through him.
"You're asking too much of me right now."
"Am I? Why can't you just trust what you're feeling?"
"What if I can't?" she asked, her voice rising higher.
Taking her firmly by the shoulders, Sirius looked her square on. "Look at me, Hermione. Believe this. I can feel you right now. I can feel how torn you are. How scared. And, yes, how angry. But, love, this is still me. It's still us."
"Us?" she said, shaking her head. "What 'us'? We've barely had any proper time together, and now we're—"
"Things are more intense, I grant you, and we both have to get used to being this open to one another, but—"
"It's too much."
"Just try," he asked. "Reach for me."
"Stop pushing me! I've had no time to deal with this yet! You've had days! I've had minutes! And you had a choice in the first place!"
"One time, 'Mione," he insisted, ignoring everything else she had just said. "Just once. Right now. Open yourself up and see. This doesn't have to be frightening. Not for us."
Glaring at him briefly, Hermione then shut her eyes. Sirius watched her face closely as a hidden, sightless part of him began to feel her at the other end of the bond, probing their soul-deep tie with her mind, feeling its shape and lustre more carefully than she had done minutes earlier.
So, when she then purposefully closed herself off, it was like a door slamming in his face.
"All right," she whispered harshly, her mouth tight around the words. "It's there. I can feel it. What of it?"
Sirius looked completely thrown. "Well, that's a gormless thing to say. Don't you—" His voice dropped off as he took in the look on her face, the disdain shining through. That kind of haughtiness directed towards him had always driven Sirius slightly mad; today proved no different. "Not many people have a soul bond, Hermione," he said, his voice sharp and defensive. "It'd be a shame to bugger up ours before we even try."
"Have you had one before?"
"No."
"You're only guessing, then," said Hermione, calling his bluff. "Suppose you're wrong."
"Why suppose that? We both know I'm right!"
"Suppose everything is a disaster for us from here on out?"
Jumping to his feet, Sirius began to pace. He could feel the anger crawling its way over his skin like ants. There was no point hiding it from her – he knew she would feel his own fury knocking up against hers – but he still did his best not to blow up completely.
Not yet, at any rate.
"Why are you talking like this?" he asked as he moved back and forth in front of her bed. "A week ago, we were desperate to be together. We fought, yes, but I was just on my way to find you when Redwine's Patronus knocked me over. We weren't done. Far from it. So, what's changed?"
"Everything!" she replied. "Everything's changed! You changed it all, and I'm left here lying in the dark. But I'll tell you this, Sirius Black: you might think you know all of me now because of this bond, but you don't!"
"Too right, I don't!" he agreed loudly.
Hermione leaned forward in the bed, her face a storm of clouds. "Did you do this to punish me? Is that it?" she asked harshly. "I wake up to find that you've decided the rest of my life for me, and it's because it was my fault. Yes?"
"What?!"
"I couldn't protect you that night," said Hermione, her voice wavering. "The Veil defeated me. I lost. I failed. And then you were standing there in front of me, and I couldn't do a thing to warn you. You were in the worst possible place to be, and it was because of me – my mistakes. But then you invoked the soul bond and protected yourself, and now everything else that's happening to me is secondary to that."
Sirius skewed his eyes shut, barely able to think. "What the hell are you on about, woman? Because that's not what happened!"
"You did this to save yourself!"
He paused mid-step, slowly turning to stare at her. "You're barking, right? Completely mad!"
Hermione didn't give an inch. "Look me in the eye and tell me this decision of yours was entirely selfless. That you finding out you're a Revenant didn't matter at all. That not one iota of you cared about the fact that, by making this soul bond permanent, you were saving yourself from falling back through the Veil. Because I know how you felt about magical bonds before. You didn't want one with me. That kind of thing doesn't change."
"Of course, it can bloody well change!" he snarled. "Fine, yes, I knew what the transfusion meant. I'm not daft. When we realised a sealed bond was the only thing that would save your life, I knew it would anchor me here, too. But I didn't give a damn about that. It didn't sway me one way or the other. I only cared about what was happening to you."
"How can I be sure of that?"
His mouth fell open. "Fucking hell! Don't you—haven't you been lis—" He drew in a ragged breath of air. "Gods! I have turned my world upside down for the past two months for you. I've spent weeks trying to prove to you how much you can trust me, how much I care, how much I—and if you still think somehow that I mattered more in any of this than stopping you from dying, then…" He panted, unable to say anything else. The end of his tether choked him.
"Then what?" she pressed.
"Do you really think so little of me?" he shouted, staring into her dark amber eyes. "Merlin, Hermione! You know me. And I don't mean through the bond. I mean me. You know me. You always have done. I would never put myself before you. Not in a thousand lifetimes."
Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm so confused right now," she said, her voice quavering. "I don't know what to think."
"'Mione. Please!"
"It's all just hitting me in waves," she admitted. "Everything you feel swamps me. I feel like I'm drowning! I can't breathe. I can't control anything going through my mind. It's all so raw. So sharp. It's cutting me from the inside out."
Coming quicky around the mattress, Sirius sat and placed his large hand over her small, cold ones. "My love," he whispered. "Let me help."
Her mouth turned down as she looked at his fingers dwarfing her own. "No. Not now. Not yet. You've done enough."
"But I haven't, have I? If it had been enough, you wouldn't be questioning everything like this." A heavy sigh escaped him. "Do you have any idea what it's like to be so driven by a single other person?"
"I do now."
"No," said Sirius, meeting her sharp look. "You did before. Lie to yourself all you want, but not to me. I know you're all jumbled up right now—"
"Obviously!"
"—and clearly angry—"
"I'm livid!"
"—but we belonged to each other long before now."
"How can you say that?" asked Hermione.
"How can you deny it?"
"You were never mine. I hoped, but it was all still so early. So fast."
"I have always been yours," he insisted. "From the moment I came back."
"And when, precisely, was I to know that?" she asked, stumbling over the words. "When you were off with Aurora? Or when you were shagging all the other women you've had since you got back? When you accused me of sleeping with Colin? Or when you humiliated me in front of everyone we know?"
Sirius' face paled with disbelief. "Circe suffering fuck! We're back to the fucking painting? Are you cracked? After everything else that's happened, that's what you f—"
"I don't remember everything else!" shouted Hermione. "I wasn't here for any of it!"
"You were! But being nearly dead for days on end has a way of taking you out of the fucking conversation."
"Don't patronise me, Sirius," she seethed, her eyes narrowing. "I'm not a child, and I'm not some plaything that you can just manipulate and then toss aside!"
Balling his hands into his eye-sockets, he wondered at what point he had entered an alternate dimension. "What are you on about?"
"You know what I mean!"
"Once and for all, can you just tell me why you're so hacked off?" he shouted, his voice ringing around the room. "Because we got past Aurora and all that ages ago! Why are you acting like this?"
"I don't know how to trust you anymore!" she screamed.
Sirius blinked furiously, dismissing her fear a second later. "Of course, you do!" he scoffed. "It's me!"
"And look at what you've done," said Hermione in a hollow voice.
"We're going to get through this. You'll see."
"You don't know that."
"I do!"
"Don't make it sound like nothing!" she pressed, her voice rising again. "Don't you understand? I don't know who I am anymore!"
Sirius suddenly felt so tired. It was exhausting, chasing her round and round, and never making any headway. When they had fought before, they had always found their way back to each other – usually because one of them had started snogging the other. Seduction, however, wasn't much of a possibility here, in a hospital room with healers and helpers and Harry lingering just outside the door.
But, more than that, Sirius' mind kept tripping over a simple truth: if Hermione was fighting him so much this time, had he really been wrong about the soul bond? He'd felt so sure that she would understand why he had done what he had done, but now that confidence was disappearing faster than smoke.
And it hurt.
Her fury and disbelief were weapons scoring across his flesh. They were both suffering, and they were both angry, and he couldn't fix any of it.
"Do you really feel I betrayed you?" asked Sirius, his voice dangerously soft. "Because I couldn't bear the thought of living without you? Of watching you die right in front of me?"
"I don't know what's real anymore. That's what feels like a betrayal."
Grinding his teeth, he growled, "You'd know the sodding truth if you just opened yourself up to the bond. But that would be giving up too much bloody control, wouldn't it? We couldn't have that, could we? Couldn't ever leave reason to one side and just do what's really important."
"I know what's really important," countered Hermione.
"You don't know your arse from a hole in the ground right now!"
Hermione crossed her arms and looked away. "I never asked for this bonding, and you can't force me to accept it just to justify your own selfishness. I won't do it."
He choked off a cruel laugh. "Do you ever get tired of being such a contortionist? Of twisting yourself into so many different positions? Don't you see what you're doing, 'Mione? You're throwing away happiness with both hands and you don't even realise it. Think! I can feel that you want me. I can feel in my guts that you remember every second of how it feels when we're together. I can feel, too, right now, how lost you'll be if I walk out that door."
Her nostrils flared, but she still wouldn't look at him.
"Damnit, woman, I can feel that you lo—"
Hermione erupted like the mightiest volcano. "I DON'T CARE!"
The vases on the windowsill holding her flowers shattered instantly, spilling water and broken stems all over the floor as her rage savaged the room, their combined magic smashing beyond her control.
"I don't care what you think you're feeling from me!" she yelled. "I don't want it to be this way! I don't want any of this!"
The sound of the breaking glass drove Sirius off the bed, ripping away the last bit of his belief.
It was funny: so much of what she had said before had bounced right off him, but something about Hermione's tone now – it was more than enough to strangle his hopes. One of them had to make a decision before either of them drew literal blood, and it looked like it would have to be him.
Again.
Maybe his choice would prove to be the right one, eventually, but for now, Sirius knew anything he said to her meant bugger all.
He looked at the shards of glass around his feet. "I suppose that's my answer. Tell me this, Hermione: if you can't stand me this much, why try to destroy the Veil in the first place? Have you thought of that? Because, right now, it sounds like you think it would have been best if I'd just disappeared."
Nothing.
Not a sound came from the woman before him, except for the soft hitches in her throat as she breathed.
Feeling her silence as a near fatal blow, Sirius waited long seconds, praying for an answer. "Well, do you? Do you really think that?" he asked.
Hermione still didn't say a word. Their eyes locked, and he searched her face, but what he needed to see to stay with her any longer wasn't there.
"Right, then. I'll fuck off."
At that very moment, just when Hermione seemed to be at her most self-righteousness and proud, she collapsed in front of him. Her face paled even more, which he hadn't thought possible, and she braced her hands roughly on the mattress.
Maybe she felt what she had just done to him, thought Sirius. He hoped so. He'd never hoped so hard for anything before in his life or death.
Maybe the bond wasn't ruined yet. But he knew he couldn't stay to watch its death throes.
If she couldn't trust him right now, then he bloody well couldn't trust her either.
Already turning away, he heard Hermione then call out behind him. "Sirius! Wait!"
"No."
For a moment after he spoke, he stood stock-still facing the door. When he finally glanced back, Hermione was frozen in the bed. If she looked that riven now, he could only imagine what his own face was like.
But it was too late. This had to stop.
"Enough," he growled, his icy Black temper finally taking hold. "You want me to bugger off? Done! I don't fucking care if this is a goddamn soul bond. It bloody well doesn't feel like one!"
He was nearly at the door before he heard her harsh whisper. "Sirius. I… I'm so confused. I didn't—"
"You change your mind, you'll know where I'll be."
"Where?"
"You'll know, if you can bear to figure it out," he sneered. "Until then, don't fucking bother. Sod it. As far as we're concerned, none of this ever happened. Any of it. Just the way you want."
"What?"
"We're finished."
She took in a sharp breath. "You don't mean that."
"Don't I?" he answered darkly. "Just watch me."
And with a loud crack, he was gone.