A/N: Please review if you like it!

Chapter 13: Illegal Tour of London, part 2

Hermione waved her wand again and now a leggy woman with long black hair and insurable assets on display stood before him. To add to this bombshell, she wore black spiked high-heels and a tiny black leather dress that had her assets practically spilling out at the top.

"Adult enough for you?"

Sirius tried to close his mouth shut. Adult was not exactly the word that came to mind. More adult film star.

"Sure, but your f-face no longer matches your I.D.," he said dumbly, trying not to look down at her chest.

"No one's going to be looking at my I.D. Sirius," she smirked again.

WTF happened to the prudish Hermione who had been complaining about a simple letter just yesterday? thought Sirius. Ron's comments must have hurt Hermione more deeply than even she let on. Because if this was a backlash reaction, she was giving it in spades.

He was beginning to miss the old prudish Hermione.

Nonetheless, Sirius followed the bombshell glamoured Hermione into the club, trailing behind like a chastised puppy dog. As expected the bouncers to the club, took one look at her assets and nodded for her to go in. Their smiles were a bit too much for Sirius. It offended him the way the bouncers leered at her like they wanted to pinch her behind. Sirius quickly caught up with Hermione and looped his arm around her's before they got any ideas.

The situation did not improve much once they were inside the club and made their way to the dancefloor. Though the lights were flashing and the music was so loud that it was impossible to hear anything, it did not take long for a sizable portion of red blooded males in the club to take notice of the glamoured Hermione and flock towards her.

Sirius had to fend off a number of lecherous creeps that tried to butt in their dance. To avoid starting a fight, Sirius had to subtly manoveur them away or obliviate them but then more of the same obliviated creeps would reappear and try to dance with Hermione all over again.

"Do you mind terribly?!" Sirius shouted impatiently at another of the young hooligans trying to dance with Hermione when she clearly didn't want to.

Finally even Hermione got tired of playing the bombshell and they agreed to finish the night with a few drinks in the upstairs VIP pub. Sirius could finally hear himself speak as they stepped into the surprisingly luxurious and tranquil lounge A medley of jazz music played softly in the background and the whole place was diffusely lit with blue neon lights.

While Sirius ordered the drinks, Hermione found a booth near the back and transformed back into herself. Sirius was relieved to find Hermione in her plain shirt and jeans, not the bombshell in the leather dress, sitting at the booth. He smiled as he sat down.

"I can't believe it's only 11."

"I can't believe it's not tommorow," Hermione stretched out her arms, "Today feels like a lifetime ago."

Sirius couldn't help snickering. "When you put it that way, I agree with you. You've done a lot of living since then. A bit too much maybe."

"In my defense, I had to. In the space of 24 hours Ron called me boring and you called me off for being a prude."

"You're taking things out of context, the situation in which I made my comment was completely different from Ron's!"

Hermione raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"I never meant it as an insult," he explained, "I mean tonight was fun but I hope you don't make a habit of it."

Hermione laughed like he had just said the funniest thing in the world.

"Don't laugh. It's not exactly appropiate for a 16 year old girl to spend her nights looking like that in a pub."

"You're one to talk Sirius! Aren't you the one always in pubs?!"

"Now you're being judgmental-"

They were interrupted by the arrival of their drinks, a bloody mary and a chocolate mousse milkshake. Hermione had not the time to change back into her glamour and the barman did a doubletake. A look of shock came into the barman's face as he noticed how young she looked compared to her companion.

"Excuse me, can I see some ID," the barman said in an angry authoritative voice before Sirius imperiused and obliviated the barman back to his station.

"Damn muggles and their ID," Sirius said taking a sip of his bloody mary.

"That was unnecessary," Hermione said without conviction because she also looked more interested in her drink than the barman's well being.

"He was going to give us trouble."

"I meant your comment about muggles."

Sirius frowned. "Hermione, muggles ARE completely bonkers when it comes to ID.. I've never seen anything like it...It's like one giant prison system, I don't know how they put up with it."

It aggravated him that he still sometimes mentally refferred to himself as his cell number. His number in Azkaban, which had been tattoed onto his arm. What kind of human being wanted to be reduced to a number or have to worry he'd be thrown in prison if he didn't carry his barcoded I.D. with him always? ID checks almost cost him his life when he'd been a fugitive without a wand. The number of times muggle policemen and authorities had tried to arrest either himself or Snuffles for not having I.D. or a collar...was enough to make him hate muggle police with a vehemence that could put any muggle punk to shame. What was their problem anyways trying to lock up stray dogs and vagabonds? Dear Merlin, he hated to sound anything like his mother, but muggles, or at least their system, were completely insane...

Hermione played with the chocolate mousse in her drink but she sensed his troubled tone.

"You probably think I'm beginning to live up to my name but I don't have anything against muggles, just some of their rules. "

"There are a lot of wizard laws that don't make sense either...Such as imprisonment without a trial or any examination of evidence."

Ouch, that was not a nice thing to say.

"Hard blow, but fair enough."

But Hermione continued, "If you had had a muggle lawyer and been tried in a muggle court, I have no doubts you would walked away as a free man or else be let off by pleading insanity. Quite a reasonable system isn't it?"

"Okay, okay, so I may have misjudged the muggle system a bit but I repeat, I don't have anything against muggles. To answer your earlier question, when I was on the run, muggle pubs were some of the only places I could go safely for some human contact."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"No! Not that kind of contact," he said quickly. Though it was only half the truth because there had been some rough and tumble. "I meant some of the best people I met were strangers in pubs, muggles. They helped me out when I was fugitive and didn't have a wand. They didn't know who I was and I didn't know who they were but I won't forget their kindness..that's the thing about pubs, you meet people you would have never otherwise met, tell them everything, your whole life's story, even if you never see them again or cant remember anything the next day. For one night they're your best mate...It meant to a lot to me after the isolation of Azkaban."

"I'm sorry I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion."

Hermione gave him an apologetic smile and Sirius smiled back guiltily. Truth be told, he had also had more than a few one-night-stands in pubs that he was not proud of. Being a fugitive had only added to his list of excuses for having no strings attached. But he didn't feel like bringing that up just now. Or hopefully, ever.

"I guess there's a lot I don't understand about how it was like for you being a fugitive. I'm glad you found some comfort in muggle company."

"Me too...I might not be here right now."

The look of utter sympathy in Hermione's eyes was a bit too much to take. He didn't feel he deserved her sympathy right now. So he changed the conversation and soon the were talking about her again. Much better. Hermione's life so far was short and very tidy, nothing confusing or tragic to dwell upon. They talked about Hogwarts, her professors, and briefly about her career aspirations. But Sirius could only take so much of her "top 20 things to accomplish before 20" talk before he was mildly irritated. Although he admired her intelligence, he didn't appreciate the almost narcissistic undertone to some of her grand ambitions. It was good to be ambitious but Hermione sounded almost like she wanted to take over the world. She spoke so confidently of working her way up to the top of the ministry that it scared him a little. Or maybe it was the vodka that turned her into a young Margaret Thatcher. So he steered her towards more juvenile territory and finally to the topic of her lovelife. As expected, her confidence and worldly sophistication immediately plummeted and a sixteen year old girl sat before him again.

"So you and Ron, you can't tell me there's nothing going on there."

"I -I don't know what you're saying."

"Come on! You argue like an old married couple all the time."

Sirius was mildly disturbed to think that if she and Ron actually got married, they would jump straight into middle age because they were already long past the honeymoon stage. All that they could look forward to life of arguing each other to death. Really they were not a good match. He'd need to talk sense to her if he could.

"Ron and I have mild differences in opinion, that is why we argue. There's nothing more to be said about that."

"Except you cried a river today when he told you you were boring."

"I just felt like crying," Hermione said sloppily, playing with the straw in her drink.

"Sure."

"I did. I get emotional sometimes..."

Sirius stared dumbfoundedly at her. How could a girl so intelligent in most things be so incredibly naive when it came to other things?

"Fine." He let the topic drop, he didn't much care for talking about Ron anyways.

But after awhile he had to ask the question that was personally bothering him.

"So why did you feel the need to glamour yourself like you did tonight?" He sounded almost grumpy because he had been truly shocked by her behaviour.

Hermione had the decency to blush. "I don't know what I was thinking Sirius...but you saw how men react when you look like this." She snapped her fingers and she became the bombshell glamour in the tight leather dress again.

"Hermione quit that! It's distracting."

"Exactly, it's distracting," she said as she switched back to herself in her plain jeans and t-shirt, "Even with you, and you're not a teenage boy."

"I'm a gentleman Hermione but that thing is practically poking my eyes out...It's not like I'm trying to be a dog!"

Hermione rolled her eyes at his pun. "Which is why girls feel totally ignored if they don't wear short skirts with everything hanging out...if they're a boring prude like you said." Hermione looked like she wanted to cry again. Oh bother.

Sirius grabbed her by the shoulders. "Hermione quit it," he looked at her face and saw that her pupils were dilated and her cheeks were drunken red. He swiped the drink out of her hand. He sniffed it.

"I thought this was a chocolate milkshake! How much alcohol is in this thing?!"

"It's a chocolate mojito," Hermione grinned drunkenly.

"Right you've had enough." He set the glass aside, out of her reach. "You're much too young to care what men, let alone boys, are thinking about you. Or staying out this late. Merlin's sake you're only 16." What the hell was he thinking taking her here?

"I'll be 17 in a month!"

"You're still too young."

"For what?" she stared at him blearily.

He didn't like the dangerous look in her eyes.

"Quit talking nonsense." He grabbed her hand and pulled her roughly up from the seat. "We better get back. Remus is going to have a hissy fit when he finds out I broke the curfew..."

"I thought Tonks was on guard duty tonight," Hermione whinged as Sirius pulled her through the crowd towards the exit and she tried not to stumble on her drunken feet.

"No she had guard duty last night," Sirius stopped walking for a moment, "Wait! That means Snape is on duty tonight." He hurried quicker with Hermione pulled behind him.

Oh bollocks. He would've rather returned to Remus on a full-moon than an uppity holier than thou Snape.

.

.

A/N: Uhmmm this chapter was different before then i added the longer version than switched it back to the shorter version because it flows better with the next chapter...but at some point i'm going to have to blend the two versions of this chapter together. sorry about that.