A/N: SOS- I hope I did you justice.
Like it or hate it, please review.
One week before the start of term Hermione decided that she wanted to do her school shopping. She had gotten a large amount of gold from interviews and appearances, and the first place she went was Gringotts to open her own vault. Not surprisingly the goblins had been short with her, giving her a recently emptied vault that smelled like dragon dung, and made her wait fifteen minutes to get a cart. They didn't seem all that upset to see her leaving.
"Never really a pleasant lot, but they were in rare form today, weren't they?" Sirius grumbled as they stepped into the sunlight.
"Considering I'm one of a very select few people who have managed to rob the place, I'm not surprised I'm persona non grata," she smiled, shoving what she had kept of her gold into her purse.
"I forgot about that, but now that I think about it you can tell where they had to fix the floor you three destroyed," he laughed.
"You should be frightened. From what I've heard they've been unable to replace the dragon we let free, which was also guarding your vault."
"Somehow I'm not afraid that someone might try to replicate your escape. The sheer mechanics of it, not to mention the luck involved, was somewhat epic. That and I got a letter saying that they've replaced the dragon with a Graphorn."
"Right," she said, walking into Flourish and Blotts. "Nothing but the best for the Black family vault, huh?"
"Sirius Black!" the shop owner squeaked at the sight of him.
"Alive, well, and cleared of all charges," he muttered, his now typical answer. Ever since returning to London he had been inundated with witches and wizards terrified by the sight of him. Despite the fact that he had been proclaimed innocent, as evidenced by a piece of paper from the Ministry that he carried around, the wizarding community as a whole was still terrified by his very presence. There had been an article on his return in the Daily Prophet, which mentioned his innocence, but the Ministry had convinced the editors to regulate the news to page twelve. They claimed it was because they didn't want to be overrun with people who wanted the return of their dead relatives, but Hermione strongly suspected that they didn't want to look like the idiots yet again. She was sure Kingsley, who didn't give much of a damn about the press, would have made sure the article was front page news.
"I need my Hogwarts books," Hermione muttered shortly. Normally she could spend hours perusing the bookstore, looking for things that might be interesting reads, but now she was irritated with the shop owner and just wanted to get in and get out.
"Seventh year?" the owner asked, still looking Sirius over.
"Yes," she replied, than listed the subjects she was taking. With a few waves of his wand the books came zooming towards the owner. Sirius had to duck to the side to miss one.
She paid and they left the store. "I'm getting a little sick of that," she murmured as they walked down Diagon Alley.
"Sick of what?" he asked, eyeing the new racing broom in the nearest shop window.
"Sick of them constantly staring at you because you're you, staring at me because I'm holding hands with you..."
"They stare at you because you're you, too," he pointed out.
"Yes, but that's because I'm known for doing a good thing."
"Stinks when you have a bad reputation following you, huh?"
"Yeah," she said, getting a little ahead of him when he paused to look in at the Owl Emporium. As their hands stretched out as far as they could go without releasing each other he pulled her back to him and into a sensual kiss.
"Do you really care what the hell people think of us together?" he murmured against her lips.
"Let them stare," she replied, craning her neck upward to press her lips to his again.
As they turned to continue down the street he wrapped an arm around her waist. They walked towards Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, and when they arrived he held the door open for her.
"Hermione!" George smiled widely, pulling her into a hug and kissing each cheek. "My shop is your shop, wonder witch. Whatever you want, on the house. As a thank you for saving my brother's sorry ass."
"I didn't save his..."
"I'm sure you did at some point. Just take the goodies, and be a spokes-witch. You'll bring in loads of new customers if they see you with my stuff."
"Well, thank you, George," she smiled, walking off into the shop.
"You, on the other hand, Black," George turned to him. "You're loaded. You pay."
Sirius gave a barking laugh. "How have you been, honorary Marauder?"
"Really?" George put on the look of a beauty queen who just found out she won her pageant.
"After your grand exit? How could I not make you one? And being the sole survivor, it's all in my power."
"I'm taking it day by day. I have Ron helping out, so that's doing loads, but I've had to put a lot of things on hold while I sort of regroup and get things running smoothly again."
"What have you had to put on hold?"
"Expansion plans. We were thinking of buying out Zonkos, but a few months of paying the rent and not being open sort of depleted our 'buying out' fund. If we start doing the same business we were doing before we were forced to go into hiding it'll probably take a year or so to save it back up. Hence why I want the smartest, most popular witch of the moment to be carrying around a big bag of my products."
Sirius looked contemplative before looking around and seeing Hermione checking out some of the more adult WonderWitch items.
"You and Granger, huh?" George nudged him.
"The old dog learned new tricks," he chuckled back.
"Ugh, I'd do anything to learn those set of tricks," he muttered as Hermione bent over to look at something on the bottom shelf. "Is she as spectacularly amazing as I imagine she is?"
"Why would you imagine that?"
"Something always told me that 'Mione would be somewhat adventurous in bed. Something about the repressed sexuality of bookworm type girls. Or at least that's what the adult magazines have led me to believe."
"Well, you're just going to have to keep imagining. I'm not telling anything."
"You don't need to. I can see the products she's picking right now, and I'd do anything to be in your shoes Padfoot," he smirked.
"So, about Zonkos..." Sirius changed the subject quickly.
That afternoon Ron had decided that it was time for Kia to meet his friends. He had invited Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Sirius to a picnic in a park in Ottery St. Catchpole. After much bickering back and forth, and Hermione trying to stall by spending as much time as possible in Diagon Alley, she wasn't able to delay long enough to avoid getting on the back of the motorbike. She put on her helmet and clung to him as the bike lifted into the sky. Her eyes remained screwed shut until she felt the jolt that signaled the bike's return to the earth. Only then did she venture to look around her, and saw them driving through the countryside. They passed the Burrow, took a turn, then roared into the main town. He steered expertly around traffic, finally coming to a halt outside the park. They hopped off the bike, he looked around to make sure the coast was clear and cast his usual protective spells quickly.
They wandered, hand in hand, to where Hermione had pointed towards a group of four people, two of whom were redheads.
"Nice of you to finally show your faces," Harry chuckled as he spotted them approaching.
"You know me," Sirius smiled. "I love to make an entrance."
Hermione took the initiative, offering her hand towards Kia, who was sitting next to Ron looking a little nervous. "I'm Hermione," she smiled warmly. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Kia," she shook her hand enthusiastically. "Nice to meet you."
"Sirius," he offered his hand.
She looked a little scared. "You look awfully familiar," she mumbled as she tentatively shook it.
"For the sake of full disclosure, yes, I am the man who broke out of prison several years ago, no, I didn't do it, and I have since been cleared and have papers to that effect. I am not 'armed and dangerous', at least not in the sense that the news portrayed me to be," he smiled as if this information was nothing more than a joke.
"I see..." she said slowly, but smiled as if she obviously believed his story.
"Mum packed us a load of stuff," Ron said, prodding the basket sitting next to him. Making sure to keep it by his side he reached in and started pulling out different dishes.
"You mum sure knows how to pack," Kia muttered, looking surprised at the sheer volume of food Ron was pulling from the basket.
"That's Molly for you," Harry laughed, handing out plates.
"Mum does love to cook," Ginny smiled, popping the tops off several sodas excitedly. She had never had a soda, and she had been looking forward to trying it all day.
"I do, too," Kia nodded. "Not as a giant passion, but I know my way around the kitchen."
"That's good," Hermione nodded. "All I really know from cooking..."
"You read in a book," Harry and Ron said in unison.
"You'll come to find that Hermione has memorized about half the library. And she'll be more than willing to recite some of the most random and trivial facts in everyday conversation. She usually wins arguments because she knows almost everything," Harry explained.
"Well, that's patently unfair," Hermione crossed her arms. "Just because you usually throw out some stupid argument that's easy to shoot down by simple logic..."
Sirius chuckled, but made like he was taking a drink to cover it up.
"Don't laugh, Black," Ron looked at her. "You're dating her."
"I'll let you in on a little secret to keeping your woman happy. She's always right. Don't argue that point with her, you'll lose. Even if you win the argument, you lose."
Hermione shot him a death glare. "The key to wining arguments is to not argue with idiots. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
Ginny snorted.
"Are they always like this?" Kia looked at her.
"This is them on a good day," she smiled. "You should see some of the fights Hermione and Ron can get in. They're worth selling tickets to."
"Why do they fight?"
"Because they're gits."
"If all the gits in the world fought with each other because they're gits, there would be a hell of a lot more arguments going on."
"Pie?" Sirius asked, holding up a pie and a server, smiling widely.
Harry started laughing. He served the pie as the conversation got away from Hermione's argument style and back towards more normal topics of conversation. Hermione and Kia started talking about a television special that had been on the week before. The men stayed quiet, wanting to discuss the latest Quidditch match but unable to do so in front of Kia. Ginny placed the used dishes back in the box, inconspicuously poking it with her wand every so often to clean the contents.
"Hey, Sirius, mate," Ron said, looking past him at the motorbike parked in the lot. "Are those some guys touching your ride?"
Sirius' head snapped towards his bike, and he eyed the mean who were running their hands admiringly over it. He had spent his free time fixing the bike back up and making it look pristine again.
"It's protected," he muttered, not taking his eyes off the men. One of them tried to sit on it, but jumped up rubbing his rear. "Bloody Muggles."
"Muggles?" Kia stopped her conversation and stared at Sirius. "What's a Muggle?"
"Er..." he looked nervously around. Harry and Ron looked angry, Hermione and Ginny were looking at him in shock.
"There's something you're not telling me," Kia immediately rounded on Ron. "There's been something you've been hiding since we've started going out. What is it? What can't you tell me?"
The witches and wizards exchanged nervous glances.
Hermione sighed. "Perhaps we should go somewhere more private?"
Kia eyed each of them. "My mum and dad went to London to see a play. They won't be back until later, my house is empty."
The house was two blocks away, and they walked slowly there. She invited them in, and they all sat in her sitting room, looking around nervously.
"You're here. Now tell me what's up," Kia demanded.
"Your girl," Harry gestured for Ron to tell her.
"Right," Ron muttered, sitting next to his girlfriend and taking her hand. "What we're going to tell you, you have to promise to never tell anyone. Not even your parents. It's a complete secret, and you're not supposed to know unless we get married."
"Not that we've ever been a lot to follow rules," Sirius winked.
"I always thought that was a dumb rule that broke marriages up," Hermione shook her head.
"Not the time," Ginny quieted her.
"So, um," Ron shot a look around for support. "All of us are, well, we're wizards and witches. We all have magic. There's a whole underground magical community living all around you."
Kia looked around to all the people in the room as if waiting for one to jump up and inform her of the joke. "You're serious?"
In response Ron drew his wand. In unison the rest of the group drew theirs.
Kia breathed quickly as she looked around at each of the wands. "This isn't some sort of hoax?" she whispered.
"Here," Hermione said, conjuring a paper bag from thin air and handing it to her. She took it, but could only stare at it.
"Are you okay?" Ron asked nervously.
"This is bloody awesome!" Kia laughed. "I knew there had to be something like this going on, some of the things the news reports just doesn't add up, but I never thought I'd meet a whole group of witches and wizards! Are the rest of your family magic, too? Is that school you went to a school for magic? Were you at a Wizard prison, Mr. Black? How many witches and wizards are there?"
"Whoa," Ginny held up her hands, chuckling. "One at a time!"
"I'm sorry," Kia took a deep breath. "This is just, like the coolest thing I've ever heard of. You can't fault me for getting excited and asking questions."
"That's actually pretty darn close to what I was like when I found out I was a witch," Hermione smiled. "My mom counted twenty-three questions before McGonagall could get a word in edgewise."
Sirius and Harry broke out in simultaneous laughter.
"That so sounds like you!" Harry looked at her apologetically.
"You can't tell me you didn't have questions," she shot back.
He shrugged. "Hagrid told me, and I sort of went with the flow."
"Leave it to you..." she started.
"Speaking of leaving," Sirius said, standing. "I think it'd be best for Ron to fill Kia in with all the details. Sorry, darling, but it's nothing we haven't heard about," he added, looking towards Kia.
"Yeah, you should probably get going," Ron said, shrugging.
They said their goodbyes, and promised to get together soon at the Burrow for a 'Welcome to the Secret' party. Harry and Ginny Disapperated, much to Kia's delight, then Hermione and Sirius made their way towards his bike.
"I'm not sure that was the smartest thing. We probably should have Oblivated her," she bit her lip nervously.
"Eh, we'll do that if they break up. But let her have her moment. This has to be exciting for her," he wrapped an arm around her.
"I agree that it's not a good idea to spring magical abilities after a marriage. It can create a sense of inadequacy next to someone who can do anything with a wave of the wand. But they haven't been going out that long. We probably should have waited to spring that on her."
"I'm not worried about her," he chuckled. "I'm more worried about poor Ron ever getting out of there with all those questions she had."
"Do you think..."
"I think," he interrupted, pulling her to him and running his fingers through her hair. "That we don't have much time before you go to Hogwarts, and all I'm worried about is spending as much time as possible with you in my bed before you get on that train."
"You, sir, have a one-track mind," she sighed, smiling.
"Pun intended?" he nuzzled her neck.
She responded by taking his hand and pulling him towards the motorbike.
