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'm posting this much later than I would've liked, so no waffling in the A/N. Hope you enjoy, let me know your thoughts.

oOoOoOo

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER:

Please note this chapter may include scenes of a sexual nature, including implied sexual activity as well as highly descriptive language, so if that's not your thing, move along.

oOoOoOo

Chapter Eleven: Say Goodbye

oOoOoOo

They'd had a tip-off from a witch living in a muggle suburb just outside of London. Sirius was assigned to the case, so he met up with the woman, a nervous little thing who insisted on meeting at a muggle café so far out of the way he almost got lost trying to get there. It was worth the trouble though; the witch said she'd noticed some strange comings and goings at a neighbours house.

"Shadows comin' and goin' at all odd time o' the nigh'," said the witch, leaning forward conspiratorially.

"How do you know it's not just your neighbours having visitors?" Sirius asked.

"Nah," said the witch, shaking her head so emphatically he thought her earrings were going to fly off. "It's my Kneazle, you see."

The witch told him that her pet Kneazle, had been acting out of character. Normally a confident cat, he'd stopped jumping the fence dividing her and her neighbour's property, which made no sense especially considering the creatures favourite haunts were in that direction. Sirius was glad he'd taken this call because if it was any other Auror they may have passed it off as a paranoid, nosey old woman seeing things, but when she mentioned her Kneazle, he immediately thought back to Hermione's old familiar. The creature had known he was innocent before anyone else believed it. His Animagus might be a dog, but after that experience he'd developed a healthy respect for cats. Well, Kneazles anyway.

He'd taken down the witch's details, and drawn up a briefing for the team. It'd already been presented and the mission was on for later that night. "We'll go in under the cover of darkness," Harry had decided. Now he was putting together a brief to follow up on another lead, this time further out west, and this is what he was doing when the chimes went that signaled lunch, and with a grin, he made his way down to ninth as stealthily as possible.

Working in the same building as Hermione had taken on a whole new level of distraction for Sirius. It was made harder by their decision to keep their relationship to themselves for the time being. Before, meeting for lunch had been a pleasant break in the day, and now, it was all he could do not to reach across the table and take her hand, or kiss her when she reapplied her lip balm after the meal. Especially now he knew exactly how that tasted!

He was in luck; the witch of his thoughts was making her way down the hall from the Department of Mysteries. He situated himself in a darkened recess, and when she walked by, yanked her in. She squeaked, drawing her wand on him but he caught her earlobe between his teeth and she melted under his touch instead. "Sirius?" she whispered, her eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness.

"Well I certainly hope so," he said, affronted. "You're not sneaking around in dark corners with any other devastatingly handsome wizards, are you?" He continued to tease her. "You know, I could have been anyone, what's happened to constant vigilance, Ms. Granger?"

In response, she pushed her body up against his and any smart quip he might have had on the tip of his tongue was swallowed by her kiss. He registered, vaguely, that it was an unfair rebuttal to his attempts to annoy her, but for some reason he wasn't inspired to complain. Instead he responded eagerly, unwilling to let her have the upper hand. He used his tongue to press against the seam of her lips until she opened her mouth to him, and then he slid his tongue in to taste her, nearly groaning out loud when she did the same in return. She moaned and shivered when he ran a hand up her thigh – Merlin he did love these work dresses and skirts she wore.

"Shh babe", he whispered, perfectly aware that he was making it incredibly difficult for her to do just that, as his wicked mouth danced along her neck.

"We have to stop," she panted. "We're at work," she said, though her hands continued their own wandering across his chest, around his neck and into his hair. He could have cried when she ran her fingers through his hair at the nape, her small nails scratching in a way he found unbelievably erotic.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I am working", he said breathlessly, his palms low on her hips, pulling her against him so they both gasped.

"You play unfair Mr. Black," moaned Hermione, not without a little frustration.

Just then a door opened and footsteps passed their hiding spot in the hall. They both froze, holding their breaths instinctively until the threat had passed. Hermione was attempting to disentangle herself from him.

"We've got to get to lunch, Harry will be waiting for us and he'll wonder what's taking so long," she argued. She was straightening her skirt and trying, unsuccessfully to tame her hair back into submission.

"Sorry," he said, grinning at her flushed appearance.

She snorted. "No you're not," she laughed.

"No I'm not," he agreed, laughing himself. Her kiss swollen lips were pulling him in.

"Oh no no," she said, as though reading his mind. "We are going to lunch and then I have a meeting and I am not going the rest of the day looking like I was almost shagged in a dark hallway."

"I could find us a nice broom cupboard if you prefer," he said in a gravelly voice, grinning when he saw the quirk of a smile on her lips.

"You're hopeless," she said, dropping her eyes. "Look at the state you've gotten yourself into." She smirked and sauntered out of the shadows as though nothing had happened, leaving him there to deal with his not so little problem himself.

"Shit."

Ten minutes later he joined Hermione and Harry at lunch.

"Where've you been?" Harry asked him. "I saw you leave the office the second the chimes went."

"Gotta log a lav break now Harry?" joked Sirius, watching Harry try to cover his faux pas.

"Charming," said Hermione.

"You not going to eat anything?" Harry asked his godfather. "We're on the field later, you should get something to eat now." Sirius looked towards the canteen offerings and wrinkled his nose.

Hermione rolled her eyes, digging into her bag and pulling out an apple that she tossed to Sirius.

"How's your morning been, love?" Sirius asked her, grabbing the apple and crunching into it. "Still getting gifts from lover-boy? What's that, three weeks now?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, while Harry sighed heavily between them. Baric's gifts had not ceased entirely, but at least they weren't every day now. Hermione was convinced that he would eventually give up, for lack of hope or galleons, she didn't much care.

"You know, I think I've had quite enough lunch, that turtle soup was very filling," Hermione said, gathering her things. "See you later Harry. Sirius." The witch dropped a kiss to Harry's cheek before walking off without a look back, even though she could feel the intensity of his stormy eyes watching her as she left.

She made her way back to her office frustrated, at least ten minutes before her lunch break was over. Sirius was behaving as though she wasn't capable of handling a fairly benign problem herself. What would he be like if it was actually a dangerous situation? Ridiculous, ridiculous wizard. She was glad she was heading off to Hogwarts in a couple of hours to do some research. Minerva had been quite generous in offering her room and board for the night should she decide to stay over, and right now that sounded like a brilliant idea.

Thinking about her research instantly put her in a better mood as excitement bubbled up. She was going to talk to the house elves at Hogwarts – after promising the elves via Minerva that she wasn't going to try to 'liberate' them. Really, were they ever going to let her forget that? Perhaps when they saw she was all grown up with other things on her mind.

House elves had always been able to do their own magic, magic comparable to wizards and sometimes even surpassing that. For example, they could Apparate even where wizards couldn't. And they did it all without a wand. Although the origins of wizards and other magical beings was shrouded in history, Hermione was sure that by studying the house elves, she might be able to understand how it was they channeled their powers so successfully without a wand, and why wizards could not, or at least, no longer could. She had a few theories and she was itching to narrow her information down.

Sirius was sweating so much that the shirt he was wearing underneath his Auror robes was stuck to his heaving chest. In front of him he had two of the hideaways in full body binds.

The bust had started off well – they'd had all exits covered and were ready when the others flushed the perps out of the house. What they hadn't realised was the number of war criminals hiding in the house, and they were overwhelmed, with spells being fired off in all directions. Some had gone this way, some that as they tried to escape, and in the fray Sirius had branched off with Davis and Jes to chase down four of them.

But now he was standing here, on a dark street lit only marginally by an ominously flickering lamppost and a very low Lumos, waiting for his crew. One minute the other two Aurors had been behind him, and then the four criminals had split off and Sirius had gone after these two while the other Aurors chased the others. The night was eerily quiet considering the action taking place in the area, but no distress wand flares had been sent up so he quelled his apprehension. This wasn't the best neighbourhood by any stretch of the imagination and it was well in the middle of the night. If any of the muggles in the houses had heard or seen anything, they'd probably just burrowed deeper into the safety of their own home. And if not, well. That's what the clean-up crew was for. As three minutes ticked into four, then five, he started to get restless with adrenalin. He couldn't just stand around in the street of a muggle neighbourhood with two grown men stiff as boards at his feet, but neither could he leave his team-mates in such a uncertain situation.

Moving back and forth, he eventually shoved his hand into his robes and pulled out the portkey that would take him and the perps straight to lock-up in the Ministry, where more Aurors were waiting anxiously for the new arrests, hesitating. All he had to do was grab both suspects and touch the black cube wrapped up in it's cloth and they'd be out of here. Just as he was about to do so, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and he turned to see three figures come tumbling out of a side-alley, knocking over bins of rubbish into the street. With the light being what it was, he couldn't tell if it was two Aurors and a perp, or the other way around, but he leapt into action driven by instinct. He turned to his captives, pushed them together with a temporary sticking charm, and, prying open the fist of one of them, pushed the uncovered black square into the man's hand. In a blink, they were gone, leaving Sirius free to get into the skirmish. Spells were shooting back and forth; in a pool of lamplight he caught site of both his teammates battling one perp. Whoever this guy was, he was putting up a good fight. Flashes of different colours and intensities were shooting from the perp's wand, and Sirius knew that some of them were dark magic.

As he returned spells at top speed, throwing off the perp, he wondered who it was. They had a list of suspects, but it was hard to tell in the light and he suspected this was one of the 'big fish' on their wanted list. He was fighting like the hounds of hell were on him, and might've well have been, thought Sirius, grinning to himself even as he dodged a spell that went into a mailbox, exploding it.

The perp was getting tired. His moves were getting slower and slower, and Jes and Davis were advancing on him, Sirius just a short away behind, when it happened. He felt a sharp, intense pain go through his left arm, and then the ground was coming up to meet him and everything went dark.

Hogwarts was exactly the way Hermione remembered it in happier pre-war years. Somehow though, it felt smaller than it had then, but then again, she was no longer a child. She'd gone home as planned, and packed some overnight things before taking the Floo to Remus' private quarters. The werewolf was waiting for her arrival right on time, and laughed at the anticipatory excitement on her face as she stepped back into the old castle.

"Now that's a face I remember well," he said, holding out a hand as she stepped out of the fireplace, dusting off her robes. "But it's been a few years since I last saw it," he said, smiling warmly. Hermione beamed back in response; absolutely nothing could break her good mood right then. She was back in the field, actually doing research, and she was back in the place that held so many good memories, as well as unpleasant ones. It was the good though, that flowed back to her as Remus and her made their way through the castle. Remus had a free, and was happy to walk about with Hermione as she took in the once-familiar sights and sounds of her childhood.

The moment they'd ascended from his rooms, they walked past a group of first-years, and Hermione couldn't believe that she, Harry and Ron had once been that small. One little girl with exceptionally large brown eyes was looking at her, and Remus introduced her to the group as 'Unspeakable Granger'. Hermione tried to hold back her amusement as the children broke out in hushed, excited whispers, and Big Eyes eyes grew even larger.

"Come," said Remus. "Minerva should be back from her appointment now and we're to have tea with her, she insisted."

"And the elves after?" asked Hermione.

"Yes," said Remus, amused. They made their way to the Heads Office. "So you and Pads eh?" he said, and Hermione hoped that her cheeks weren't giving her away. As mad as she was at her Marauder, it was still a novelty to talk about their budding relationship with one of their friends, let alone Remus, Sirius' best mate. It was strange to suddenly be 'the best friend's girlfriend' as well as a friend and former pupil to the wizard walking beside her.

"Yes, me and Sirius," she said, not really sure what ought to be said in a situation like that. It was the first time Remus had spoken directly to her on the subjectI. "Do you approve?" she asked quietly, looking up at her companion.

Remus startled. "Not that it should make any difference – you're both adults – but yes. Of course." He grinned.

"Really?" said Hermione, smiling back. "Age aside, you don't think we're too different to work?"

"You tell me," said Remus. "I'm quite a bit older than Tonks, and I'd say we were quite different from one another, but it's seemed to work out." His lips twitched.

He did make a good point.

They reached the gargoyle and Remus whispered "Ragdoll" to access the stairs.

Tea with Minerva was another surreal experience. It wasn't that Hermione hadn't seen her old Professor in the years before – in fact, they had kept in regular written correspondence – but rather being in that particular office again, that particular tea-set and that painting of Dumbledore smiling down beatifically from the wall behind the desk. They spoke about Hermione's life as well as what was going on in the school. Just as she'd relaxed there came a knock on the door.

"Come in!" said McGonagall, and the door opened to admit one Professor Severus Snape. His eyes widened just a fraction when he saw Hermione there, before settling back into it's unaffected, dour expression. Hermione forced herself to suppress the smile that was threatening to appear. It was hard to take Severus' demeanor seriously when she knew he'd been shagging Mari in the storage room at the Ministry. And then there was the fact that he knew she knew, and she knew he knew she knew. She sighed happily at the tiny signs of discomfort she saw.

Severus stayed to discuss something quickly with Minerva while Hermione and Remus paged through a photo album, and when he was done, the wizard left the office, bidding its occupants farewell. "Oh, and Hermione," he drawled. "Do give my regards to that mongrel of yours," he said with a smirk, disappearing through the door.

Remus shot her a quizzical look, but Hermione realised she couldn't actually tell him without outing Mari or explaining how it was Severus knew about Sirius. She shrugged, relieved when Minerva squealed aloud at a photograph and diverted their attention.

Meeting with the elves was a singular experience; Hermione must have spent a good four hours down in the kitchens and elf-quarters – which were actually quite nice, nothing like Kreacher's nest in the Grimmauld kitchen – chatting with the elves and making notes.

Eventually her growling stomach (she'd drawn the line at having them feed her throughout) and the business of the elves as they went into work mode, drew her up to the Great Hall for some dinner. To her amusement and embarrassment, she was sat at the teacher's table, overlooking the students. After dinner they retired to Remus' quarters for a drink, and by that time Hermione was falling asleep on her feet, so she bid her friend goodnight and went to her quarters. She sunk into the bed gladly, dreaming about the research report she was going to put together the next day.

At seven-am the next morning Sirius came through the Floo into Grimmauld alone; Remus, Harry and Tonks had met him at St. Mungos but fortunately his injuries were not as bad as they looked, and he'd been sent home by Harry with a firm order to spend a couple of days recuperating.

They hadn't caught the perp who'd got him from the back while he was assisting his team-mates. The other wizard had been subdued and arrested, but whoever had assaulted Sirius had fled, seeing as his or her attempts to rescue their fellow had fallen flat. All in all there'd been six perps arrested, all lower order Death Eaters, except for the one that had put up a fight, and the one that'd escaped. They'd caught Thicknesse, finally, which was at least a balm to Sirius' disappointment at losing the other and being injured.

He was looking forward to getting home. Remus told him that Hermione had gone straight to the house, and he fully intended on kissing the daylights out of his sexy witch when he got there. There was nothing like potential death to encourage the libido. Which nobody had told Hermione, clearly, because said sexy witch came at him so hard he almost fell back into the fireplace.

"Ow! What the fuck, woman!" Sirius used his good arm to hold the scrabbling witch away from him. As if someone had flicked a switch, all the fight went out of Hermione and like a feral cat that had given itself up to death, she sagged limply against his chest. Sirius hesitantly reach his good arm around her, squeezing her to him, and when he was sure she wasn't going to attack again, placed a kiss to her unruly hair and waited.

Eventually she pulled away, looking up at him shamefaced.

"You scared me," she said. "I was fast asleep, then I get woken up by Remus banging on my door yelling about you being hurt. I thought I-" Her voice got tight and he knew she was struggling to hold back tears. "And I didn't even say goodbye to you at the Ministry and I thought- I thought, what if he-"

"Sweetheart…" He pulled her closer. "I'm here. Hey, it's okay. I'm pretty good at my job you know," he tried to joke, but one look at her red-rimmed eyes told him she wasn't in the mood.

"Love, you know I do this job. It's part of the job, getting hurt sometimes. And I'm fine, look." He motioned to his left arm, bound up in a muggle sling. "It's not a hundred percent, Longbottom said it was probably because of the dark magic. But it'll get better, and you can't even see the bruise where I fell on my head."

For some reason his words seemed to have the opposite effect on his girlfriend, and she glared at him, now adding incredulity to the list of emotions flitting across her sweet face.

He groaned. "Love, I'm exhausted. My head hurts, my arm hurts, and now my chest hurts a little. Please can we talk about whatever it is I've done wrong later?" he pleaded. Her whiskey eyes looked up into his and he wondered, not for the first time and probably not the last, what was going on in her mind. She put a cool palm to his cheek, dragging his mouth down to hers. He could feel the apology and relief in her kiss.

"I have to go out again today," she said softly. "I haven't yet wrapped up at Hogwarts, and when I'm done I've got to go see Olivander. It was difficult getting an appointment with him since he's retired," she said, apologetically. "Will you be alright here by yourself?" The concern in her eyes knocked him off his feet and tugged on his heartstrings.

"Of course, love. You go do you brainy wandless crazy-magic thing and I'll be here when you get back. Who knows, if you're a good witch you can even be my nurse," he said suggestively, extra pleased with himself when he caught her tell-tale blush, even as she rolled her eyes.

After she'd left, Sirius made his way up to his bedroom, longing for his bed. He did feel a lot better than he'd expected, hearing of his injuries, but he was still exhausted. It'd been a long day the day before, and had gone well into the night. He was also eager to take some of the potions that Longbottom had sent home with him, something for the pain and something to speed up the healing of his arm.

As he passed Hermione's bedroom door though, he heard a sharp tapping noise. You've just missed her, he thought, opening the door. Sure enough, an owl was rapping against the window, a sizeable package in its grip as it hovered with difficulty. Sirius opened the window, giving the owl a scratch and a handful of owl treats from the bowl on the sill and watched it fly off before he turned to the package in his hand.

His blood boiled when he saw what it was. The bloody nerve.

A/N: Eek!