A/N: *Sigh*. I was going to include an adult scene in this. But I work with toddlers. Some days they are adorable, sweet, and eager to play and learn and such. And other days if you're given the choice between them and a tank full of sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads you look at them and think 'it's a nice day for a swim'. Guess which kind of day today was? I was too exhausted to write it. I'll make up for it, I promise.
Please enjoy, and I wish a happy toddler type day to everyone who reviewed.
The next day Hermione dolled her self up slightly, not so much to raise suspicion, and made her way through the castle, across the grounds, and out the front gates. She wrapped her cloak tightly around her as she walked, carefully listening to the sounds along the path, but there seemed to be nothing more than a few birds around. She made it into Hogsmeade without incident and strode through town to the joke shop.
"Hullo," the same sales girl greeted her warmly as she entered the joke shop. She was one of those people that was easy to instantly like, slightly older than Hermione, cute but no so much she had to worry about Sirius' eyes roving, with a pleasant attitude that didn't push itself into annoying.
"Hi," Hermione smiled back. "Sirius here?"
"He signed out about half an hour ago and went upstairs. Said he was expecting a caller," she winked with a grin as she pointed towards a door at the back of the shop.
"Thanks," she blushed and started towards the door.
"The man won't stop talking about you," the witch called after her. Hermione stopped and turned around.
"What do you mean?"
"It's good, don't worry. He keeps throwing ideas at me as to how to lure you out of that castle to come down and see him more often. I told him to just break in, he said he could do it, but he also said he won't because it would make you angry. I wish I had a wizard like him."
"There's plenty of good wizards out there," she contained another blush from creeping onto her skin.
"Oh, I have a wizard. He's just bloody useless," the witch chuckled. "I'm Chrissy, buy the way."
"Hermione," she nodded.
"Of course you are. You were all over the news a couple of months ago. Bet it must have gotten annoying."
"Fame's not everything it's cracked up to be."
"Ah, well. You better get upstairs before he comes down here looking for you."
"Nice to meet you," Hermione smiled, then turned and headed for the stairs.
"I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty of each other. No going home early for me on the nights you're stopping by!" Chrissy called after her.
She opened the door and climbed the narrow staircase behind it. She raised her hand to knock on the door when it flew open before she could make a sound.
"About bloody time," Sirius growled, pulling her in, kicking the door closed behind her, and pressing his lips urgently to hers. His hands held her firmly to him, not roving, not trying to get her out of her clothes. 'Dinner' might not have been an euphemism.
"Miss me?" she murmured against his lips.
"Considering the last time I kissed you I was a little more animalistic I thought I should make it up to you," he chuckled.
"You were just showing off your true nature," she smiled seductively.
"You do that to me, we're never going to make it to the dining room," he raised an eyebrow. "Not that I'd be complaining or anything."
She caught a thick aroma in the air. "Did you cook?"
"I attempted," he smiled. "Turns out those cooking classes at Azkaban leave something to be desired."
"Did you need me to?"
"I got takeaway tandoori. Figured I should have dinner on the table," he shrugged.
"If you want me to cook for you sometime..."
"I'll ask. But tonight I just wanted you sitting next to me, looking incredibly sexy and making me amaze in my luck of having you."
"If that's the case we should probably get to it, then," she said, slipping out of her cloak and handing it to him. She was wearing the gray pleated skirt and white blouse of her Hogwarts uniform, but she had used her wand to make it a little shorter and more form fitting, then added knee high socks and his favorite pair of heels.
"A schoolgirl uniform?" he eyed her hungrily. "You're trying to kill me, aren't you Granger?"
"If I was it'd be exactly the death you wanted," she replied, turning to look around his flat.
"Yes, but I want to enjoy the ride here for a while." He grabbed her hand and led her though the flat. There was a large multi-use area that had a fireplace, couch and a television Sirius had managed to make work. There was a large bathroom with a claw tub, a small kitchen with the blackened attempts at Sirius' cooking soaking in the sink. They passed a closed door which must have been the bedroom before they sat in a small dining room with a table only large enough for four.
"Matching dinnerware. I'm impressed," she said, sitting at one place setting.
"I may be a bachelor, but that doesn't mean I have to live like my mother didn't teach me something about keeping house."
"I thought Black men were typically more the 'marry young and let the wife take care of it' type."
"But I was a Gryffindor, and therefore she had no expectations of me being able to marry anyone acceptable, so the few times I came home for summers she taught me to take care of myself as best as she could while trying to avoid me."
"And she managed to teach you to coordinate things?"
"I am a Black, and as thus I'm supposed to have the appearance that I am worthy of my noble blood."
She looked him up and down as he served their dinners, then asked in a low whisper, "you want to Floo back to Grimmauld Place and take me against your family tree?"
He fumbled the spoon, but recovered before he spilled anything. "Can I get a rain check? Harry's at Grimmauld Place, I don't feel up to making explanations."
"Rough day at work?" she asked, placing a hand on his arm.
"George actually expects me to do paperwork, can you believe that?" he smiled.
"It must be so tough," she smiled.
"I'm sure a few inventory sheets and keeping up on the books probably isn't as tough as doing all that work at Hogwarts."
"You should know. You were a student once," she pointed out.
"Yeah... that would have required doing homework. I was too cute for that," he winked.
"You conned some poor girl into doing your homework for you?" she asked in disgust.
"If Moony counts as a 'poor girl'," he smirked. "Not really my type. Too stringy. And that stubble did nothing for his facial features..."
Hermione chuckled. "Lupin actually agreed to do your homework for you?"
"I'll admit James and I were somewhat manipulative at first. Kind of what we were good at. I know, I know..." he added at her look of repugnance. "Moony was a real cool guy, and yes, we did play off his desperation for good friends at first, but we would have stuck around him even if he didn't do our homework. He was the best of us all, if you can imagine that."
"You're all good men. If we judged people on who they were as teenagers there would be very few good impressions of anyone."
"You, Harry, Ron being exceptions."
"Ugh," she grunted. "We've all had our bad points. We're not saints."
"If you listen to the Prophet you are."
"Dig back a year or two. You'll find a much different story," she grumbled, putting down her fork as she lost her appetite.
"You don't need to tell me twice about being bad-mouthed in the press," he followed her lead.
"I wanted to talk to you about that," she said.
"About what, love?"
She took a deep breath, then explained to him about her NEWT paper.
"Does that mean you'll have to visit Azkaban at some point?" he asked after a pause.
"Well, yes, I would have to do a few hours study there."
"No, Hermione," he said forcefully.
"What? Why not?"
"I don't want you anywhere near that place," he said, staring her in the eye.
"But to follow a career in magical law enforcement I should understand our system of punishment."
"Understand that it's a horrible place. I'll tell you all about it. Talk to Hagrid. I just don't want you going. That's not the place for an innocent person."
"Are you saying the guilty deserve it?"
"It's better than some deserve," he slapped the table. "Why they never gave the kiss to my dear cousin is beyond me. Maybe even the dementors didn't want to fuck with her, I don't know. They would have spared a bunch of misery if they had just Avada'd her right off."
"Don't need to tell me twice," she hissed, crossing her arms.
"Azkaban is full of folks like that lunatic, and you had a bit of a taste of the dementors. Why in the world would you want to go?"
"Because I want to see it for myself. If I can get an understanding in the day in the life of the prisoners I might be better equipped to influence our laws and make sure that what happened to you doesn't happen to someone else."
"I went willingly! I as good as walked in and asked to be locked up. There was no contradicting the witnesses, no evidence in support of me. I'd convict me on what they had. I'd hope that if someone killed twelve people with a single curse they'd get locked up without a chance of seeing the other side of those walls."
"You have a pretty conservative view of our justice system," she remarked.
"Criminals deserve to be locked up. Sure, we need better control of the guards, if we did it might be more of a deterrent. And I'm not ashamed in my thought that they should have done away with Bellatrix while they had the chance. Nothing good ever came out of that woman."
"You're an advocate for the death penalty?" she asked in shock.
"Not for everyone, but for someone like her death is better than she deserved, but it's the only way to make sure they don't wind up breaking out," he growled.
She paused for a moment. "If I remember correctly, you started the breaking out trend," she said lightheartedly.
"I wasn't a crazy person," he shrugged.
"Depends on your definition of crazy," she smirked.
He smiled and placed a hand on her knee, fingers running lightly over the hem of her skirt. "I'll give you whatever you want for your paper. I'll talk to you about everything from the bars down the moldy crusts of bread they called our meals. But I don't want you going there. It's no place for someone like you."
"I had wished you'd take me because I want to be there with someone I trust," she looked at him pleadingly.
"You might be able to get me to do almost anything with those puppy-dog eyes and flashing a little skin, but I'm not budging on this one. No Azkaban."
"Fine," she sighed, vowing that this wouldn't be the end of their talking about it, but realizing there was no chance of changing his mind that night.
"How was the rest of school?" he asked, quickly changing subject.
"As always I wind up demonstrating the proper technique in Charms."
"Well, stop being so good at it, then."
"There's plenty of things I'm good at that I don't demonstrate to the class," she said, smiling sultrily at him.
"That's it!" he said, jumping up from his chair so quickly it fell to the ground. "I've had enough of the teasing. Bedroom, now!" he ordered.
She giggled, then tried to look innocent. "What happens if I refuse? Do I get punished?"
"You're already in for it for making me wait since yesterday," he growled, picking her up and carrying her towards his room.
