A/N: Sorry I didn't mean to offend anyone with the 'grumpy cat' points. **hangs head in shame**

:-)

Chapter 11: Or not so Conservative...

Sirius was delighted, and Hermione shocked, by the positive reply they received only a day later. As Sirius had kindly pointed out before, Perseus was not going to reject Hermione even if she was literally stalking him at this point. She had honestly expected him to be scared off, instead she was shocked he had responded so eagerly.

Sirius reread Perseus's lengthy meandering letter to Hermione and laughed for what seemed like the thousandth time.

"What a complete git! I know he's my nephew, but what a git!" He quoted, " 'I look forward to, how shall I say, picking things where we left off Hermione. You're right, we had a connection. I'm not sure I understand your insistence on meeting at my place... My mom is usually there...and well we might want a little privacy, won't we?' He must thing you're all lined up for him. The git! Well he has another thing coming!"

Sirius laughed loudly though secretly he felt a bit outraged that Perseus came on so strongly to Hermione and their letter to him. Or was that guilt because he was directly responsible for provoking the young lad? Sirius hadn't counted on the 17 year old Perseus responding to the letter as if he were a regular Casanova eager to get his hands on her. Then again, hotblood ran in the Black family...

"You should never have sent that letter."

"What are you talking about it? It's great!"

"Sirius, there is no way I can go meet him now," Hermione said and crossed her arms, "It'll be too embarrassing!"

"You'll do fine. And I'll be by your side the whole time. Snuffles has quite the bite, in case he gets any ideas."

"In case?! In case he gets any ideas? Are you kidding me! You full-out gave him the idea and now he's already making the plans! He thinks I want to date him!"

"Calm down Hermione." Though secretly he was amused by her modesty.

"No I will not calm down! You've humiliated me! I can't think of one reason why I shouldn't force you to go polyjuiced as myself!"

"He's my nephew Hermione!"

"That didn't stop you from writing a dirty letter to him!"

"It was not dirty, it was flirtateous. That's what teenage girls are supposed to sound like, in case you don't know. Though maybe you didn't learn that because it's not written in any book," he narrowed his eyes.

"Well, since you seem to be the expert on flirtation and being a girl, I suggest you go as one!"

"That can't happen Hermione. How am I going to explain to Selena, my sister-in-law, that I'm polyjuiced as a teenage girl because I flirted with her son to meet her, but really I'm just Sirius Black, an escaped convict? She'd hex me into the next world before I even had a chance to explain why it's all the fault of my prude accomplice!"

"I am not a prude, I just have a sense of decency and self-respect," Hermione gritted through her teeth.

"Okay, alright. I respect that. No one's asking you to be a tart. But can you at least pretend to be one for a few minutes so we can find out what happened to my dead brother?"

Sirius knew it was a cheap shot to bring out his "dead brother" guilt card, but he couldn't have her blowing their plans over mere embarassment. And he didn't want to have another argument either, not with how angry she was last time after she lost.

"Fine. When you put it that way, I guess it's not much to ask for...But you can be sure this is the first and last time."

Somewhere in the immature recesses of Sirius' brain, a neuron couldn't help firing off: 'Impossible, once you go Black, you never go back!' Luckily he did not voice his thoughts. Otherwise, Hermione truly might have hexed him into the next world.

Harry, Ron and Sirius sat around the dining table while Hermione finished tossing the salad and brought the rest of the meal to the table. She had made a delicious beef and carrot stew that immediately made anyone who caught a whiff of it drool. It was a recipe she had learned from her Chinese neighbour: the secret to a good beef stew was to add a bit of sliced ginger.

"Wow, this looks great Hermione!"

"Much better than last time," Ron said absentmindedly.

"Do not bring that up Ron," Harry warned. He didn't want to lose his appetite or have Ron tick off Hermione again. It was an unfortunate occurence that the last lunch Hermione had prepared had been completely inedible. Though she apparently followed a recipe, no one had been able to stomach the sour tasting spinach ricotta spaghetti. Even to Harry, who had tried to politely eat a few bites, it looked and tasted like green puke.

"So what are you boys up to today?"

"We're going to the Burrow," Harry said.

"Again?" Sirius looked around the table to see if anyone was thinking what he was thinking. "You seem to be spending alot of time at the Burrow, Harry, for someone who's not a Weasley."

"What are you trying to say Sirius? He's my best friend, of course he's going to be there," Ron huffed.

Sirius laughed. "Oh nothing, nothing...How is your sister, Ginny?" he asked Ron while looking over at Harry.

Ron caught onto Sirius's line of direction, "She's fine. So you can stick your nose out of it!"

"Ron! What is your problem? You are being rude to Sirius, and in his own house, I would remind you," Hermione chastised.

"He knows what he's trying to do," Ron said moodily and glared at Sirius.

Oh boy, Sirius thought. Trouble lay ahead for Harry if even the suggestion that Harry might be interested in Ginny offended Ron. Though it was unclear whether Ron was just being a protective brother or he was annoyed that his best mate wanted to spend time with his sister instead of him.

He'd have to chat with Harry sometime, to clear up the matter. Merlin knows, he could've used some advice himself at that age. It might've have avoided him a lot of trouble...and the wrath of a good number of girls when he was a student at Hogwarts.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Harry asked a second time.

"Mum said she's making pumpkin tarts," Ron said, though he didn't actually sound like he wanted to share his tarts.

"I think I'll pass," Hermione said.

"Yeah me too...We haven't finished with the attic yet," Sirius lied.

Ron looked flabbergasted. "Are you kidding me? You're choosing to spend your day cleaning an attic?"

"Someone has to do it, there are dark objects in there," Hermione lied smoothly, "and Kreacher can't be trusted to do it."

"You guys are boring!" Ron said flatly.

He should have kept his mouth shut there but instead he continued speaking, "I mean Hermione you've always been boring, but now you too Sirius? What has she done to you?"

"Shut up Ron!" Harry said but it was already too late.

Sirius looked over at Hermione.

Though she was trying her best not to show it, Hermione looked like she was about to cry and wordlessly left the room. She and Ron has been on edge for awhile since their last argument about Molly.

"Shit." Sirius knew that Hermione often felt like the odd one out in the trio, but did Ron have to rub it in her face?

"Do you have no sensitivity at all?!" Sirius shouted at Ron.

"What? I was just kidding, I didn't mean to, to-"

"To hurt her feelings?" Harry finished for him, "Well, you just did! By a long shot. Whether you meant to or not doesn't really matter now." Harry shook his head.

"Should I apologize?" Ron said dumbly.

"I don't think she'll want to see you just now," Harry said impatiently as he left the room to go after Hermione.

Harry returned a minute later. "She's locked herself in her room. She doesn't want to talk to anyone."

Harry turned to Sirius, "See that she's alright, yeah?"

Sirius nodded weakly. Since Hermione had left the room, he felt gutted. Angry enough to want to punch Ron out. But it wasn't just anger. He couldn't explain why or how but it was as if he could feel Hermione's pain, as if it were his own.

It was the oddest feeling.

"We'd better go." Harry said and left with Ron to the Burrow.

Grimmauld place stood in solemn silence for a long moment before Sirius made his way up the creaking stairs to Hermione's room. He heard her quiet sniffles as he approached her door. He knew Harry said that her door was locked and she didn't want to talk to anyone, yet it felt wrong for him to turn back, not when he knew she was crying.

He knocked softly.

"Hermione?"

A pause of silence.

"Can I come in?"

He turned the knob and was surprised that the door opened.

Hermione sat on the edge of her bed, looking away from him. Yet he knew she was still crying heavily by the heaving of her shoulders which shook the wavy curls of her hair. He walked around the side of the bed.

"Don't come any closer! I don't want you to see me like this."

"See you like what? You haven't grown a tail have you?"

A choking sound came out of her throat. Sirius wasn't sure if was a cry or an attempt at a laugh, but it sounded like an improvement to him. Finally she spoke again, "Do you always have to be so silly?"

"Can't help it, love," he said trying to sound more nonplussed than he felt.

He sat beside her. Immediately, she looked away from him, hiding her face with the curtain of her hair.

"C'mon there's no reason to hide your face from me or anyone..."

Hermione's shoulders relaxed a bit as she listened to his voice. She found Sirius' soft baritone voice relaxing.

"If anyone should hide their face it's Ron, not you. And I don't just say that because of what he said, Ron is a pretty ugly git, personality aside." He refrained from adding that sometimes he wanted to punch out Ron when he was being especially rude.

Sirius ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "Damn annoying mug, he looks like he's sucked on a lemon most of the time with those puckered lips and squinty eyes."

Hermione managed to let out a small laugh.

"On the other hand, you...

He stopped speaking for a moment as she at last turned around and faced him. Her cheeks were stained with tears and her nose was slightly pink yet somehow she looked utterly nice as he met her gaze.

"You look..." he stopped himself from saying what he thought. It didn't seem appropiate.

"...like a wreck." She finished for him and burst into tears again but this time she let him hold her as her sorrows came pouring forth.

After a while she managed to sputter out what was troubling her and Sirius listened patiently.

"All my life I never had many friends, I was always the one in the library studying with books. People think it's because I am trying to prove myself better than others by being the smart one but sometime I'd just be there because I had no one else to talk to..." she stammered and struggled to not break down in tears, "People think we're so close, the trio, with Harry and Ron, but I just feel, I mean I have always felt like, they just use me for my brains..That they're not...not actually my f-f-friends."

She burst into more tears and Sirius held her firmly against his shoulders until she stopped shaking.

He looked straight into her eyes. "They are your friends Hermione, even though Ron can be a jerk, Harry I know would do anything for you. They do care about you, deeply."

"It doesn't feel that way."

"Well we don't always see things clearly do we?...Take my example, I trusted and loved my friends, thought they did the same. They were like family to me and could do no wrong, I even put them before my own family, but in the end I misplaced my trust. Despite what I believed, I could not be more wrong."

Hermione immediately pulled away from his shoulders to look Sirius in the eye.

"I'm so sorry, Sirius," she wiped roughly at her eyes, as if chastising them for being so weak, "I don't know why I'm crying, I'm crying over nothing...Compared to what you have gone through...Ron says mean things but he has never betrayed me, not like that."

She hugged Sirius to her and held onto him as if she worried he might collapse under the weight of his own grief. He stroked her hair.

"And he never will betray you. Don't ask me how I know, I just know. Ron's a right arse at times, but it's because he's an open book and there's no evil in him."

"I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. Ron is an open book."

"Yes. On the other hand, it's the ones that never lose their temper or anger you that you have to be careful about. Peter Pettigrew was that way, always
hanging about James like he worshipped him."

A bitter pain stabbed at Sirius' heart. It was the same pain he felt whenever he remembered the betrayal that led to the death of his best friend and ended in his his own imprisonment. Time did not diminish his grief but he did his best to shove it aside and hold the girl in his arms, to be there for her...forgetting about his own pains for a moment. Normally he felt so calm in Hermione's presence, so that it made it easier to forget about his past, but right now seeing her so upset had upset his own equilibrium.

He hugged Hermione again to his shoulder, "It's alright. It's alright," he murmured, though he didn't know who he was saying it to. He held for a long time until she had recovered and no more tears fell from her pretty eyes.

"Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

"No problem."

He noticed that she still was a little sad hours later, which she only made more obvious by trying to smile more than she usually did.

Sirius couldn't stand seeing Hermione sad, dammit. It made him sad too.

Finally he just grabbed her hand in his and said, "We're getting out of here!"

.

.

.

A/N: Whoo! Is anybody else excited that Sirius is finally going taking Hermione out?! I know I would love to go out with Siri (though I might get carried away and attack him with hugs while he repeatedly tells me 'its not a date, i'm too old for you and im just trying to be nice to you! sheesh!')