Disclaimer: All canon characters, places, plots and situations from the Harry Potter Universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no profit from this.
Warnings: Rated M for language, violence and scenes of a sexual nature in later chapters.
A/N:
I've been away from this site and this story for so long that I've forgotten how to use it. This is technically the second half of the previous chapter. I have no apologies to offer for the silence, please accept this chapter and those to follow as they are – I've been sitting on this story for so many years unable to move forward, feeling like the gaps were too big and life was too busy. After re-reading this story recently, I think that I will eventually re-write Magnetic. In the meantime, please enjoy some resolution, if any of you kind souls who read before, and feel this is worth reading right now, are out there.
Chapter Twenty Two: In The Empty Space (Part Two)
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Weeks passed by, with the two of them in a kind of limbo. Sirius knew that Hermione was burning the midnight oil with her research and he could see the tiredness written into her face whenever they did come together – but he couldn't help but think that some of the tightness around her eyes, he had put there. Uncertain of how to break through their stalemate, and, if he was being honest, anxious about making the wrong move, he elected to stay close but give Hermione her space. It was a little easier since he was enamoured with his newest god-child, and had sworn to himself that this time around he would do it right. Lily would grow up knowing who he was and never for a second question his love for her, the way Harry had. So between Hermione's increased dedicated to her papers, and him to making up for the past, things felt off.
Love, he decided, was messier than he ever expected. He knew deeply that Hermione loved him, and hoped against all hope that she believed him when he said he did. They slept in the same bed, ate meals together when the chance arose and were physically affectionate, clearly both able to draw strength and comfort from the presence of the other. But there was a yawning space between them and he didn't know how to cross it.
'Just give her some time,' Remus had told him, during one of their late night confessionals in the kitchen. But time had never been on Sirius' side, and he wondered if it could be now.
It was early December now, and Sirius had become accustomed to waking up alone, Hermione already having awoken to shower or have breakfast, the spot beside him already cold.. Now the weather had properly turned, the chill in the air more piercing than ever and the light in the mornings had an eerie quality to it, bathing everything in a drowsy haze. It was hard to get out of bed.
So he was surprised to awake one morning to find Hermione sitting on the edge of the bed in her pyjamas, staring out the window. The exposed flesh of her upper back, shoulders and arms were covered in goosebumps, and he reached out automatically, squinting to make out her impression.
"Love?", croaked. "Aren't you cold?" He ran a warm palm along her upper arm, wincing at how chilled her skin was.
"It's snowing," Hermione responded. Her voice was strangely dull, as though she'd taken some kind of sedative potion. He immediately shuffled towards her.
"Be that as it may, sweetheart, you're not a dragon… What's wrong?"
She blinked, looking down into nothingness. "My parents died today."
"Oh love-"
"It's the anniversary and I was thinking… I was wondering if… I want to visit them."
She seemed to be waiting.
"Yes, um, of course", Sirius said. "Would you like me to come with you? Can I come with you?" He hated how unsure he sounded, but she looked up at him then, with hopeful eyes. "Yes. Yes please."
The graveyard where Mr. and Mrs. Granger were buried was quiet, with the early hour and the freshly fallen blanket of snow muffling any sound from the roads surrounding the grounds. Hermione trudged ahead of Sirius, her footsteps sure. She hadn't said much more since earlier, and Sirius had matched her quietude, using her to guide him. He followed in her steps, his much larger footprints blotting out the smaller ones she left behind. Soon, they had come to a stop at a large marble stone and Sirius watched Hermione scrape at the surface with a gloved hand, clearing away a layer of dirt and ice. He thought of offering a charm, but reconsidered. Eventually a beautiful engraving was revealed, an ornate rose pattern adorning the top while below in clear script:
Henry John Granger, 24 June 1953 – 6 December 1999
& Emma Louise Granger, 19 January 1961 – 6 December 1999
Beloved parents, loving partners, in life and life beyond.
Beautiful words, thought Sirius, but also words that could have belonged to any number of stones in the graveyard. While Hermione continued to contemplate the slab, he wondered what his own parents' graves might read – or Reg's, for that matter – and at how death could reduce such looming, significant personalities to scratchings in a piece of rock. And it hit him then; he could be remembered by a gravestone right now. Even though his body had fallen through the Veil, denying him a burial, he had still technically been without manner of retrieval. He had been dead. If not for the woman beside him, he would not be here, breathing in the icy air. In fact, if he hadn't fallen through the Veil in the first place, he would at that very moment be a scant eight years younger than Hermione's father, if he too had lived. It was not a comfortable thought.
He couldn't imagine that Hermione's parents would have approved of their relationship – a man more than a decade older than her, let alone a previous convict and then missing from time itself. As Muggles, had they even understood half of Hermione's as a witch? Did he even understand Hermione's life as a Muggle-born? He felt uneasy, so focused on conjuring a bouquet of lilies, which he lay at the foot of the headstone, where Hermione was pulling up weeds in earnest. The exercise had brought some colour back into her cheeks.
"Can I have a moment to talk to them, alone?"
He nodded, backing away to a small bench nearby, taking in the rustling of the trees, the vast blue-white of the sky above. It should have felt peaceful, but his heart thumped anxiously anyway, and when Hermione eventually joined him, her cheeks streaked with tear tracks and teeth chattering, he was glad to leave.
She was so cold he could feel where the snow had melted into her coat and trousers and when they got to the house, wordlessly began helping her out of her wet things. She allowed him to undress her like a doll, the apathy concerning him a little, but she shivered and thanked him, her hands moving to the buttons on his shirt.
"I don't want this to be a sad day anymore," she said, stroking the skin of his chest lightly.
Back in the bedroom their coupling was different somehow; Sirius felt it in every movement between them, in the tenderness of his own touch and when he came he felt overwhelmed – by the physical intensity of her body wrapped around his and the vulnerability reflected in her eyes, to how loved and loving he felt in her arms. He could feel her tremble as she fell apart.
"I love you," he whispered into the damp hair at her temple.
"Never leave me?," she whispered back, and he turned to face her.
"Never, my darling," he promised. "You're the best thing that has ever happened to me."
She smiled, and warmth bloomed in his chest, pulling a smile from him too.
"I was thinking… I know things have been difficult. But I really want to tell the rest of the family about us," Hermione said.
Are you sure? He wanted to ask. The anxiety of the morning churning up inside his belly once more. I'm sure. But are you? Are we ready?
But the moment felt fragile, and he had never felt so much like his potential for damage as he did in that moment.
"Yes. Please", he said instead, glad at his choice when she brightened further. 'When?"
"Christmas, we'll all be together then."
If they had thought they'd been insatiable before, there was a new level of neediness for one another that overcame them. Maybe it was because things were getting better, or maybe it's because they weren't – Sirius couldn't bear to think on it too long - but they made love often, with a quiet sort of desperation as the days ticked by and long, dangerous missions took him away from her at all hours of the day and night.