Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. Everything belongs to JK Rowling, and I'm merely allowed to play around with them. No copyright infringement is intended.

I'd like to take my time to thank you guys, I recieved so much positive feedback yesterday, I was just soo happy! Special thanks to Smithback for givinng me a couple of names to play with (not literally) and to Battlekitten94 for creating an account just to be able to review this story. :) I really love all of you guys! Now... On with the story!

Chapter 29

-o-O-o-

As soon as Sirius crossed the doorstep, he knew something was off. "'Mione! I'm home!" he called out, but no answer came. He went to their room and opened the door to peek through. The bed was empty.

Starting to panic, called out once more: "Hermione! Love, where are you?" He went through every room without finding her. He almost had a heart attack when he entered the living room. But it was empty as well.

Empty, except for a small piece of parchment and the engagement ring he had given her mere hours before. Quivering with a sense of dread, Sirius picked the parchment and read it.

'Dear Sirius,

I'm sorry it had to end this way. Here is the ring so you can slip it on another lucky girl's finger.

If you want to know where I am, just press the message button on the phone, the one with a little envelope.

Once again, I'm sorry, I thought we could be together but I now find myself unable to lie to you, or myself, for that matter, any longer.

I hope you find yourself someone wore worthy of you.

Love, Hermione'

He put the piece of parchment down, tears already starting to well up. Finding he had nothing else to do, he pressed the little envelope button and listened.

-o-O-o-

Regulus was in heaven.

There was no other explanation. He had succeeded, he had died, and now, he was having fun with an angel. Or, at least, had had fun with an angel, because he could feel its warm, naked frame pressed against him as he shivered with slight cold. Drowning did that to you, he guessed.

The only thing that felt wrong was that he had done only wrong in his life, and hadn't deserved to be in heaven.

But, hell, heaven felt so nice, he wasn't going to complain.

With a slight moan, he pulled the angel's frame closer to his and slipped back into deep, dreamless sleep. No, he definitely wasn't going to complain.

-o-O-o-

Sirius was angry. He was no longer sad, but really, very angry.

His brother thought he had the right to own Hermione? She was his, God damn it! He was the one who proposed, never let her down, had offered her a place to stay… All Regulus had done was get himself branded by the Dark Mark and leave her broken for Sirius to pick up the pieces.

And so Sirius stormed to Grimmauld Place, intending on killing his 'brother' at the first chance he got. He arrived rather quickly, and knocked loudly enough to wake the neighbours up. "Open up!" he yelled, still banging furiously at the door.

After a couple of minutes, the door was opened, revealing Walburga Black, he eyes swollen and red, as if she had been crying for a long time. When she recognised him, her eyes bulged, enhancing their puffy effect. "Youuuuu!" she cried, pointing at him accusingly. "You blood traitor! Thief! Worthless piece of scum! I raised you as my son and you-"

"Drop the act! I know it off by heart!" he interrupted her. "Where is she?"

Walburga looked genuinely confused. "Who?" she asked, forgetting for a while that this was her runaway son she was talking to.

"Hermione!" he yelled, pushing past her and entering the house in a wave of fury. Walburga, quickly recovering from his assault, closed the door and followed him inside.

"I know nobody of such a name." she declared.

Sirius was pacing along the floor, as if trying to wear it out. "My fiancée!" he yelled at her. "She left me a note, saying she was leaving me, because she received a message from the bastard I used to call my brother!"

Walburga sneered at him. "Who wouldn't?" she asked tauntingly. "He, unlike you, belongs to a respectable pure-blood family, a very famous house and-"

"Oh, shut up." he interrupted her again. "She's Muggleborn, she doesn't care about this type of things." He saw she was about to retort some sort of racial insult, so he continued. "Just tell me where they ran off to, so I can kill that little son of a bitch and get my fiancée back."

"I don't know." she admitted, her lower lip starting to tremble. "There was that young lady who came here about two hours ago, claiming she came on the Dark Lord's behalf…"

"Did she have long brown hair and big doe-like eyes?" he immediately asked.

She nodded. "And she was about… That big." she also revealed, placing her hand an inch above her own head.

He nodded. "That's her. Can you tell me-"

"What?!" Walburga shrieked. "I let a Mudblood into my house? This is outrageous! Appalling! Disgraceful! Disgusting!"

"Cut the crap!" Sirius yelled at her. "Where the fuck did she go?"

Walburga burst into tears. "She… She went to see Regulus…"

Sirius rolled his eyes, unmoved at his mother's display of emotions. "I got that far." he growled. "Where the fuck did she go?"

"I don't know!" Walburga shrieked. "I don't know, I just know that Regulus, my boy…" She sniffed, trying to control her despair. "Regulus was in danger… She said she'd help… Before she left, she said: 'If I don't come back then…'"

Walburga gave a dry sob, and Sirius prompted her. "Then…" he said, wanting to hear the rest.

Walburga breathed in deep and continued: "She said: 'If I don't come back, then we're both dead.'!"

Sirius' blood froze. "She… She came back, didn't she?" he asked softly, dreading the answer.

Walburga sniffed and shook her head, before bursting into more uncontrollable sobs. Sirius' world broke down. He felt somehow floating, as if nothing was holing him to the Earth, holding him to life, anymore.

His face contorted and he, too, started sobbing. In need for comfort, he pulled Walburga close and held his mother tight.

She hugged him tighter, and mother and son, for one of the first times in their life, knew what the other felt.

-o-O-o-

The first thing that came to Hermione's mind when she woke up was that her feet were cold, so Sirius must have taken the whole quilt to himself again.

Then, the events from the last night came back to her, and she jerked upright. And there he was. Regulus was sleeping peacefully, as if blissfully unaware of their situation. She put her hand to his neck, relieved to find a strong pulse there. He should be out of danger by then.

She slipped out of the sleeping bag and got dressed, before pulling a little bit of food and utensils from her handbag. She heated a tea pot and got herself a mug, filling it to the brim, before she went back to sit next to Regulus.

She stared at him for a long time, wondering what she would tell him when he woke up. Should she throw herself in his arms and confess her unending love for him or would she just ignore him?

However, when she saw him stir, she did neither. At first, she froze. He opened his silver eyes slowly, as if it was painful, and heaved a huge sigh. Then he saw her. "Hermione?" he asked trying to sit up.

She put her mug of tea down on the floor and walked over to him, as if to greet him. But in the end, all she did was pull her hand back and slap him so hard across the face that he fell right back down onto the sleeping bag. "YOU IDIOT!" she bellowed.

"Hermione," he whined, rolling around to face her, but not trying to sit back up. "Stop shouting."

"OH, SO YOU'RE TELLING ME TO STOP SHOUTING, NOW?!" she continued. "WELL I'VE GOT SOME NEWS FOR YOU, REGULUS ARCTURUS BLACK! I AM NOT GOING TO STOP SHOUTING, SO YOU WILL HEAR ME OUT!"

He moaned in pain and tried to roll away from her, but she just rolled him back.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU PUT ME THROUGH?! I FUCKING THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

"You should have let me die…" he groaned, exhausted but getting stronger by the second.

"LET YOU DIE?" she yelled. "AFTER THAT MESSAGE YOU LEFT ME? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW GUILTY I WOULD HAVE FELT? LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! YOUR MOTHER WAS IN TEARS WHEN I LEFT HER, IMAGINE HER NOW!"

"It's just my mother…" he said, trying to sit up again. This time, she didn't slap him back down.

"NO, REGULUS, IT WASN'T JUST YOUR MOTHER! THERE WAS ME, TOO! DID YOU EVEN CONSIDER HOW I'D BE FEELING?! I WAS UTTERLY DEVASTATED!"

"Why, though?" he asked. "You hate me."

That calmed her down. "I don't hate you." she whispered. "I can't hate you…. Believe me, I've tried. I've tried hating you, ignoring you, believing this was all your fault… But I've failed miserably."

"Why?" he asked, as her eyes welled up. "I told you I understood, you shouldn't have felt guilty. You could hate me, I'd understand."

She shook her head. "I can't hate you Regulus." she looked up to him and brushed a strand of hair behind his ear, leaving her hand on the subtle covered side of his face. "I love you." she confessed.

At first, he said nothing, probably out of shock, but when he recovered, he smiled brightly. "I love you." he replied.

She smiled too. "I know." she said.

He gave a short laugh. They stared at each other for a couple of moments before he asked: "Why aren't we snogging yet?"

She gave him just a peck on the lips and stood up, but he reached out to pull her back down, resulting in her landing heavily on him with a small "Oomph!"

"I said snog." he said, quirking an eyebrow and Hermione, smiling, bent down and placed her lips on his. Needless to say, they were occupied for some minutes.

However, when Regulus pulled away to sneeze violently, Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry Regulus," she apologised. "But we need to get you out as soon as possible. The atmosphere is too humid here, you could catch something."

Regulus groaned, but other from that, made no objection. Hermione stood up and went to her handbag, before fumbling a little in it. After a few seconds, she pulled out a simple black t-shirt and a slightly faded pair of jeans, which she threw at him.

"These were Sirius', but I guess you're not going to leave in only boxers. Your other clothes were… Somewhat wet." She smirked as he rolled his eyes. "They might be a bit big, but we should be able to fit them just right."

As it turned out, the clothes were okay in length, but the too wide shoulders simply looked ridiculous on him, so Hermione just shrunk it a little. "So," he said when they were done. "How do I look?"

She placed her finger on her chin and pretended to think, before she answered: "Not your usual chic classy style, but the bad boy look also looks good on you."

He flashed her a smirk. "Just 'good'?" he asked cheekily.

She rolled her eyes. "Drop dead sexy, if you prefer."

His smirk widened. "Yes," he replied haughtily. "I prefer." Then, his face scrunched up and he sneezed again. "So," he said when she was done laughing at him. "What do we do now?"

She looked thoughtful. "We're both believed dead by now, so it might not be wise to just stroll in the Ministry of Magic unannounced. It would be better for everyone to think we were dead, too, like that we won't be extorted of any important information. We can't go home, because I broke up with Sirius…"

"Wait, what?" he asked. "You were back with my brother? How? When? Why?"

She sighed. "He was the closest thing to you I had, and he happened to be conveniently my friend. Besides, he was nice, and sweet, and… Oh, whatever. So we can't go there, we can't go the Order headquarters, I doubt they'd be happy to see you there… That only leaves one choice, then."

Regulus nodded in understanding. "Hogwarts." he guessed.

She nodded. "Exactly. We'll just talk to Professor Dumbledore and he'll give us a hand."

Regulus looked puzzled. "But how exactly do we get there? I mean, we can't exactly swim through that water." He shuddered at the thought.

Hermione smiled and shuffled through her handbag for a couple more minutes, before finding what she was looking for. Out she pulled a broomstick, and she said: "You have no objection to driving, do you?"

He smirked.

-o-O-o-

Just so you know, I don't think this is anywhere near the end, just that the plot is thickening... Also, I don't think I'll be able to update on Friday... Anyway, please review! :p Especially if you're a Bon Jovi fan like me, because I'm listening to 'Bed of Roses' right now. Just thought you'd ought to know.