Thank you for your support and reviews. Luida wrote a review that made my day so much brighter. Donna10Girl has beta read my chapter as usual, polished my language and moved around a few commas.
Love from Kia
Chapter 14.
Marlene slips out of his grasp and hisses at him.
"What the hell did you do that for, Sirius? We'd agree to start letting go of this charade. You want it as much as I do. We don't need it anymore. We're leaving tomorrow, remember? No more sleazy McLaggen to annoy. No more Slytherin princesses to snatch you away from. Damn you! I've never felt so used."
She turns around and leaves him in a cloud of swishing, black silk.
Sirius closes his eyes and tries to find his bearings.
Damn, that was stupid. But there was something about Hermione and Remus. They both looked guilty as hell. And they were late. They were so bloody late. Everyone else is here, has been for at least half an hour. What the hell have they've been doing?
Someone touches his shoulder and he finds himself eye to eye with the very man he's prepared to hex into oblivion.
"Quite a show, Sirius. Care to fill us in?" Remus says lightly.
Sirius tries to keep his anger and his jealousy under control. He chances a glance at Hermione at Remus's side and he realizes he's made a fool of himself. Even worse is that he's hurt her.
"Tiberius McLaggen kept bothering Marlene. You know. He was over there," he gestures vaguely behind him, "miming some rather provocative suggestions. We're about to drop this charade after tonight, I just thought McLaggen needed to be reminded to keep calm. So he won't stalk Marlene this evening. She thinks he's merely annoying, but I think he's worse."
He's about to go on blabbering when Tiberius McLaggen approaches them from the opposite direction. Sirius holds his breath until McLaggen takes a detour and avoids them.
"Where were you? We've waited for you. I think Marlene gave up and went ahead into the Great Hall."
"Painting you pea green with envy, I see," Remus chuckles.
"What are you talking about? I'm not…"
"Yes, you are. It doesn't suit you and it's insulting to my date. But, since you ask, Hermione and I had a little chat about secrets. Apparently she has figured out, what is it James calls it, my furry little problem. You know, where most people believe I own a badly behaved rabbit, this clever witch saw straight through me. And it turns out that she plans to save my life with potion development next year, so drop that murderous glint out of your eyes and behave like a normal person, for once. Now, let's go in. Hermione, grab him, please. He looks as if he needs a guide."
With Hermione between them they enter the Great Hall. The long tables are gone and replaced with smaller ones along the walls. As Sirius suspected there is a lot of silver decorations, but less of the black, and he can't see any of the really inappropriate symbols of the class society he was raised in.
The seating arrangements must have taken forever for whoever was responsible. The round tables for eight include students from every house, with the strongest antagonists placed far apart. Consequently Tiberius McLaggen is hardly visible from where Sirius is sitting with Marlene. Remus and Hermione sit opposite them. Friends of Marlene from Hufflepuff are also seated at their table, as is Pandora Zabini from Slytherin. Sirius wonders where there is an empty gap for James and Lily and misses them both.
Marlene hardly looks at him, and he knows he will have to be sincere in his apology if he doesn't want to spoil the evening.
"Look, I'm really sorry. I know I'm not supposed to grab you like that, that we have a deal of consent when one of us really needs to show of our… eh, unavailability to other people. I just… I got really, really jealous and I overreacted. And I know we don't do that either. Using each other to make other people jealous. I'm so, so sorry Marlene. Please, believe me. After tomorrow you never need to come near me again, but I hope we'll stay friends."
And by a miracle, or his unusual admittance of guilt, Marlene turns to him with a brilliant smile and nods.
"Let's not talk more about it. And if you want to dance more dances with your pretty Hermione, who, by the way, never would do anything to make you jealous, than you want to dance with me, we should perhaps drop this pretend relationship tonight, already."
"If you wish."
"I do. But only if you promise me not to come gallivanting in like a crossed lover or overprotective brother or any such nonsense if I dance more dance with anyone else than I do with you."
"As long as it's not Tiberius."
"Oh, drop it. He's harmless. Just rather leech-like. But, no, I'd rather not spend my evening in the arms of a leech."
"Who then? Someone in particular in mind?"
Marlene nods imperceptibly straight across the table, and Sirius looks surprised at his best friend.
"Really? Oh. I had no idea. Why haven't you…?"
"Stop it. Let's not talk more about that either. Did you get tickets to the Quidditch World Cup?"
After dinner and an unusually sentimental and, Sirius suspects, improvised speech from Professor Dumbledore, Professor Flitwick conducts an orchestra with more strings than frogs. Sirius takes Marlene by the hand and leads her onto the dance floor. In a small corner of his heart he feels a bit sad when he considers that he won't be her pretend boyfriend tomorrow. They've had fun together for more than three years, and it has felt safe to, at least in the eyes of others, belong with someone. They've never kissed in private. Marlene has always been crystal clear that Sirius doesn't interest her like that, and sometimes when he's kissed her in public to get rid of one admirer or another, she has reminded him of that.
He will follow her Quidditch career closely, of course. He bets she will go far. Playing games is just her cup of tea.
They move well together. When Tiberius McLaggen suddenly appears close to them with his date, Sirius cups her cheek and then pulls a lock of her hair behind her ear. She looks at him questioningly.
"I just thought I saw a leech. Just behind you."
She smacks him softly.
"You promised."
"Not concerning him, I didn't."
I'm good at playing games, too. This love game for instance. How will I do when it's not a game?
"Hermione! He's all yours now."
Marlene slips out of his hands and takes Hermione's place in Remus's arms. Remus looks a little stressed, and Sirius chuckles. When they disappear into the crowd he lowers his gaze to Hermione. She stands perfectly still in the sea of dancing people, smiling up at him.
"May I?" he asks and holds out his hands. She nods and walks into his arms.
He's never seen her with her hair up. Nor in a long dress. She looks tall and grown-up. And beautiful, sexy and positively edible. Something glitters in her ears, otherwise she isn't wearing any jewelry, which he likes. Some of the girls have more bling-bling than a Christmas tree, and he hates that. It reminds him of his mother, and his female cousins. Hermione doesn't remind him of anyone, she's unique. Sirius feels as if he's holding the whole world in his hands.
"I'm sorry about earlier. With Marlene. I shouldn't have…"
"No, perhaps not, but now she's off with Remus and I'm here with you. I don't want you to talk about other girls when you're dancing with me. Just leave it."
He kisses her temple and mumbles into her hair.
"No, I'll just talk about you. You're the most beautiful girl here tonight. Remus was lucky he could dance with you once."
They dance mostly with each other all night. Sometimes they talk. Lily had sent Hermione an owl earlier. James's father is still alive, but someone is always with him, most often all three.
"It will be OK, Sirius. He will die, and it will still be OK. James and his mother will mourn, of course, and so will you, and that is the way it should be."
Sirius sighs.
"I know. I just… He's among the few people I've ever respected as a father figure. It's just hard. And unfair."
"Yes. Yes, it is."
The room is stifling. It's almost midnight, but the Great Hall is still full of people, some on the dance floor, some at the tables.
"Some air?"
She nods and follows him. In the Entrance Hall Sirius pulls her against him and kisses her tenderly.
"Not here," she whispers. "You're still, well, officially with Marlene."
He straightens up.
"Well, she's not here, is she?"
"No, but you know what I mean."
"Care for some stargazing at the battlements?"
"Love to."
The battlements are not as deserted as usual. A group of students drink elf wine and sing old Ravenclaw Quidditch fight songs. Two couples stands kissing on opposite sides of the roof. The night isn't dark enough to show the stars clearly, but Sirius doesn't mind. He wraps Hermione in his dress robes and holds her in his arms. They can just make out the Black lake in the thin dark.
"Maybe we should have gone down to the lake instead?"
"Remember the first time you showed me this?"
"Yes, your first day here. I remember thinking that I had met you before. And I remember wondering why you looked like you'd been to war. What had happened to you then, Hermione?"
She doesn't answer.
"Hermione?"
"I can't talk about it."
"Has it got something to do with this?" He strokes the scar on her arm with his fingers.
"Yes, in a way."
The singing Ravenclaws have gone inside, and Sirius notices the silence, only interrupted by the occasional hoots from the owlery. The last kissing couple shuffles inside, and he turns Hermione around to face him.
"This is our last night here. I'll leave tomorrow, after the graduation. To Godric's Hollow. To James. Will you come too?"
She shakes her head.
"I'd be intruding. I don't know his mother. Nor James, not as well as I know you."
"No, thank Merlin for that. I would have to kill him."
"You know what I mean. I'll stay here for a week, you know that. Prepare my research for next year. Then I'll come and visit. If your invitation is still open."
"Course it is. How long will you stay?"
"It depends," she answers vaguely.
"On what?"
"On how long you want me to stay."
Sirius makes an act of pretending to write something down in the palm of his hand.
"Next Friday: Hermione is coming and staying indefinitely. Clean cottage. Buy food."
She laughs.
"We'll see."
"But right now it's too dark to see properly so I need to be sure you're here by other means," he says and kisses her.
She relaxes against him and answers his kisses softly.
"You taste so good," he mutters against the skin of her neck.
"What an absolutely canine thing to say," she whispers back. "Makes me think you go around and lick people rather than look at or listen to them."
He chuckles and kisses the hollow behind her ear, relishing in her surprised gasp. Her sighs of pleasure make his head spin, and the control center in his mind lights up like a New Year's firework. Mentally he pulls the main switch to be able to just feel, rather than think.
The battlements, when empty like now, are where he feels safe, and with Hermione in his arms he shuts out the rest of the world. Her lips against his skin, her taste on his tongue. Slowly he pulls the neck-line of her dress to one side to access her shoulder. She leans against the steady wall for support and he follows her as closely as a piece of a jig-saw puzzle. Without the stone-wall behind her he would have lowered her to whatever horizontal surface he could find, and the way she presses herself against him hints that she wouldn't object. He pushes his hands into her hair and a hairpin comes off and spirals down in the dark. The vertigo that comes over him has most likely nothing to do with the height. Her response to his kisses and his touch is everything and more than his mind, both asleep and awake, has been able to conjure up. She raises her knee to his hip, and, without thinking, his hand finds its way under her dress to secure her leg a little higher. He hesitates with his fingers high on her thigh, but when she pulls him even closer with her leg, he cups her bottom. She arches back over the low stone-wall, and for a second Sirius is afraid she'll disappear into the dark nothingness. She pulls him down and kisses him with more desire than she's ever showed before. Her sighs and moans of pleasure fill his universe and he searches for the fastening at the back of her dress. When he finds it he hesitates. This is running out of control faster than he had anticipated. He hasn't planned to undress her and take her against the millennia-old battlements of the school, and he feels more ambivalent than ever. But when Hermione reaches back and pulls down the zipper herself, he can't find it in himself to argue with her. Slowly he peels down the soft fabric covering her chest and explores her pale skin above her bra with his lips, tongue and teeth. Her fingers roam his chest and find the studs to his dress shirt. Distantly he hears them tinker to the ground. The sound sobers him up enough to form a coherent thought.
"Lily's away," he mutters against the skin of her neck.
"Mm," she agrees.
"Only you in that room tonight."
"Mm."
"Unless…"
"Mm, but the stairs… You know… Enchanted to keep… eh, you out, for instance."
Sirius pulls away far enough to be able to focus on her face. She looks more edible than ever. The remaining hairpins have joined the first falling one, her lips are swollen and half-open, her cheeks flushed and her eyes hooded.
"Well, I know, but about two years ago James and I looked into that niggle and found a really handy confusion charm for constructions made of oak tree. Which that particular staircase is made of. Would you like me to show you?"
He regrets his words as soon as he's said them. She frowns and bites her lower lip.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed… I won't push you. You're just… I want you so much, but not here, against… well…"
Hermione silences him with her fingers against his lips, and straightens up from her reclining position.
"But I do too. You just surprised me. I do want you too. I'm sure you know some hidden corridors from here to the tower. I'll follow you."
She wraps his arms around his shoulders and initiates a kiss, claiming his mouth with so much desire that Sirius forgets all and every shortcut he has ever mapped out during his seven years at Hogwarts. And the Head Girl's bedroom in Gryffindor Tower seems as distant as the moon.
A sound other than Hermione's strained breaths and the rustle of fabric finds its way into his lust-muddled mind. Someone arguing. A voice he knows. Then a cry. Hermione reacts a heartbeat before him and whips her head towards the sound. At the other side of the galleries around the Viaduct Courtyard a couple is fighting, and in a matter of seconds, while his blood goes cold with fear, Sirius knows it's his date, Marlene, who is trying to fight someone off.
But she was with Remus? Oh, damn you, Remus! You shouldn't have left her.
While cursing inside he also hears his conscience telling him, no roaring at him that Marlene is his date, and if anyone shouldn't have left her, it should have been him, their long sweetheart charade coming to an end or not.
Halfway across the east gallery he bellows for whoever is pinning Marlene down to a stone bench to stop. He just wants to get the attention from her attacker, to throw him off track and to make explicit the fact that they are not alone. It works, and Marlene's attacker loses focus long enough for her to shove her knee into his groin. It's McLaggen. Of course, it's bloody McLaggen. He rolls off Marlene and groans in pain.
Sirius's is mind is pitch black with fury, and without actually realising it, he has pulled his wand out, and he hits McLaggen with a Slicing Hex and a Stinging Hex before finishing with a Lemon juice charm for good measure and more pain. Tiberius McLaggen is a quivering, bleeding heap with his hands between his legs where Marlene has kicked him.
Distantly Sirius registers that Hermione has caught up with him and kneels in front of Marlene. He doesn't know who of them is crying, perhaps both. His mind is still fuddled with a furious hate that brings out the darkest Black blood in him. Without hesitation he raises his wand again and curses.
"Crucio."
McLaggen instantly rolls to his other side and the curse misses him. Sirius aims again, but before he can utter the curse again, his wand is painfully kicked out of his hand. Baring his teeth he whips around to face Hermione with her wand aimed at him. Her dress is hanging loosely from her shoulders and its skirt is just billowing down from her well-aimed kick. She bends to pick up his wand, without taking her aim from him.
"That's enough, Sirius. Calm down."
A sting of profanities streams from his lips, but she seems unperturbed by his foul language.
"Not worth going to Azkaban for, Sirius. Is he? Now, come here. Marlene is unharmed. He didn't… Just come here."
Feeling a bit like a normally obedient dog who got caught fighting, he shuffles over to Marlene's side, taking her familiar form into his embrace. Her body against his calms him and pulls him out of his haze of blood thirst. Dazed he watches Hermione crouch beside McLaggen and utter a spell he's never heard before.
"Vulnera Sanentur," she repeats while tracing her wand over the wounds Sirius inflicted on the already incapacitated McLaggen, seconds ago. He buries his face against Marlene's neck and mumbles what he hopes are words of comfort. He suppresses the shame he feels for reacting exactly like his father would have wanted. He could have used a tickling charm to get him off Marlene. Or a Bat-Bogey hex. It would have been what Remus had chosen, maybe even James, unless it was Lily who was attacked. He could have used his fists, but he reacted in accordance with what any member of the damned Black family would.
Bit of a cliffhanger, I guess, but please don't send me flames again. I'll update in a week, as usual. Perhaps sooner.