AN: Hello, fanfiction and Harry Potter fans. I do not own Harry Potter, but feel free to enjoy this or hate it. If you enjoy it, please leave a lovely comment, if you hate it, then leave some constructive criticism, thanks!
AN2: Today's chapter will have a little spice. Not much, but a little.
Can You Take the Jump?
Chapter 26
Sirius Black: 0+5+4+5+5= 19 points Total: 38 points
Hermione Evans: 5+5+5+5+0= 20 points Total: 39 points
Hermione Evans, by one point, was the winner of the 1975 Dueling Championship.
...
Hermione woke up the next day and suddenly everything had changed. Students said hi to her in the halls. Slytherins sneered but left her alone. The older students nodded to her in respect, while the younger ones watched her with wide eyes.
Her situation almost made her laugh, it was quite ridiculous how easily people changed their minds. All she had to do was win and now everyone wanted to know her, talk to her, had expectations for her, or fear her.
As she approached the Great Hall for breakfast, she saw a familiar head of black hair in the distance. Severus paused at the sight of Hermione. They hadn't reconciled since their fallout, after his duel with James.
Severus lowered his Advanced Potions book, closing it, but kept his thumb stuck between the pages where he'd left off.
"Hi." She said, feeling awkward and unpleasant.
"Hm," he grunted. He hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something, but in the end, decided against it and walked away.
"Severus!" Hermione called out.
He turned around, looking at her expectantly, waiting for a specific set of words out of her mouth.
She wasn't sorry for stopping him during the duel nor was she forgiving him, but she was sorry that she allowed their friendship to drift apart for the past month to focus on the championship. They never even got the chance to talk.
Severus gripped the door handles tightly. In truth, Severus had been lonely for the past couple of weeks without Hermione. The rest of the Slytherins that he spent his time with were so incredibly dull compared to her. Their intellect and wit did not compare to hers, leaving him bored out of his mind.
"Snape!"
The two turned to see Travers and his boys walking towards them. The pack of hyenas cackled as if someone had said something hilarious. They all passed her, some glaring, some staring, and some leering.
"What are you doing standing in front of the doors?" Travers asked, he glanced behind him back at Hermione. "Don't tell me, were you seriously trying to associate yourself with that filth again?"
"Big talk, for a loser."
The boys puffed their chest up, trying to look big and intimidating, but she didn't bat an eye.
Severus clenched his jaw and glanced nervously at Hermione. There was a real moment where Hermione thought he'd push aside Travers and stand next to her.
All trace of bravery disappeared from his face when Mulciber placed a large hand on his shoulder. While it was true that Hermione won their little bet, it hadn't been a binding contract. Mulciber was not as honorable as Lucius Malfoy, there was nothing that would hold him to his word other than his integrity, which she didn't anticipate much of.
However, unlike their normal interactions, he didn't jeer or sneer at her. He simply turned Severus away and opened the doors to the Great Hall. Hermione watched as the boys entered, the Slytherins put their arms around Severus and talked to him as if they were the best of friends.
She walked around them and shoved her book bag into Mulciber's chest.
"Oof." He grunted at the weight of the many books that she lugged around all day. She usually had a feather-light charm on it, but her goal wasn't to make Mulciber's life easier.
"Bring my books to class, Anton." She smirked, knowing her use of his first name irked him. "It's the least you can do as my bitch."
"You dare-"
"I do." She cut him off. She glanced around at the many eyes staring at them. "The thing about our bet is, it was so very public. Everyone knows you're my bitch now, Tonton."
The guys snorted at the nickname she'd given him. She took a page out of Lavender Brown's book, the best way to humiliate a cis-gendered heterosexual pubescent boy is to slash down at his identity as a so-called "man".
"I expect my bag to be placed neatly on my desk with all my belongings in its current condition, not tampered with and not lost and/or forgotten. Am I understood?"
"You can't make me."
"Mulciber, if you don't listen to my simple easy requests, I promise this will become much harder and embarrassing for you. I also promise that I'll enjoy it much more if you do make it harder for yourself. So please, this is a courtesy warning for you. Take my bag and put it on my desk."
"Fuck off, mudblood."
He dropped her bag to the floor and proceeded to step on it as he walked away. Hermione narrowed her eyes to hide the smile that was about to blossom from her chest.
"Oh Tonton, you fool." Hermione pulled out her wand. It was as good as any moment to try out a coercion spell of her making.
The spell was similar to the Unforgivable but much less painful if you don't comply, it was simply hard not to. Her spell didn't make the person lose their sense of self, in fact, it was quite easy to overthrow the spell, as long as you were prepared for the onslaught of coercion or if you were mentally superior in comparison to the caster. The best part of the spell was the acute amnesia that came afterward, you had no memory of what you were coerced to do and there were no lingering effects.
It was borderline dark magic and definitely illegal.
"Coactio ad voluntatem."
Mulciber suddenly stopped and turned around to stand in front of her.
"Pick up my bag, Tonton, and dust off your footprints."
Whispers started echoing the hall when Mulciber did exactly as she asked.
"Good, give it to me." She held out her hand where he placed the bag gently into her awaiting hands. "Now go dance on top of the Ravenclaw table. Reenact Swan Lake to the best of your abilities. And while you're at it, dump the salad dressing onto Stephanie Wallace's head.
Everyone's jaw dropped when Mulciber ran up to the Ravenclaw table and started jumping around like an uncoordinated, heavyset ballerino. For his grand finale, he picked up the bowl of Italian salad dressing and dumped it onto the 7th year Prefect's head. Wallace jumped from her seat screaming, and slapped Mulciber across the face, jarring him out of Hermione's spell. By the time he blinked away the pain, he had no recollection of why he was on the Ravenclaw table or why he'd just been slapped by some Ravenclaw.
"Mr. Mulciber! 20 points from Slytherin! Now, please get off the table." Flitwick demanded. "You will have detention with me tonight, young man!"
"Wha-" He whipped his head around at Hermione who was already sitting with her sister at the Gryffindor table, acting just as shocked as everyone else.
"You!" He pointed. "It was her!"
Hermione gasped with bewilderment, "Me? How could I possibly make you do that? We made a bet, Mulciber, not an Unbreakable Vow. There's no way I could make you do something as embarrassing as that."
"You- You- You bitch!"
"Oi!" Lily and the Marauders jumped to her rescue, just like Hermione anticipated. "What did you just say?"
The Great Hall erupted with arguments from Slytherins, Gryffindors, and even Ravenclaws. Hermione smiled at the chaos she'd created, but her neck prickled. Her eyes searched for the gaze that stung her to see the piercing grey eyes of Regulus Black staring at her. He's seen her perform the spell.
She raised her brow as a challenge. Are you going to spill?
He turned back to his breakfast, ignoring her once more.
...
"How mad was that?" Lyana laughed. The girls laughed at the memory of ballet dancing Mulciber seared into their brains.
Mulciber and some of his loyal cronies had to be taken away and several Gryffindors ended up getting detention as well, but it had been a sight Hermione thought was worth it.
"While that was certainly...eventful," Dumbledore stood up from his seat at the Professors' table and called out to the hall. "I have an announcement to make, so please could I have your attention for just a moment?"
The previously rowdy Great Hall settled down when the students saw their Headmaster stand at the podium.
"This year, the staff and I have decided to reward all those who worked so hard during the Fifth Year Dueling Championship. This year, we will hold a Yule Ball for the fifth year participants and the upper years who volunteered their time to supervise and help the staff organize the event."
The students shouted with joy, welcoming a break from their normal routine with something as fancy as a Ball. The girls in attendance frantically whispered to their friends or gave their boyfriends hinting glances.
The decibel of the Hall was dialed up as everyone started talking about the Ball.
"A Yule Ball?!" James's girlfriend, Sofia Lopez's voice soared above everyone else's. She ran to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to Lily.
"Guys! We need to go dress shopping for the Ball on Hogsmeade weekend together!" Sofia grabbed Lily's hand, "I really want your opinions, especially yours, Lily."
"Oh, uh." Lily looked at all her friends, then turned to Sofia with an uncertain smile. "I don't see why not."
The girls turned to Hermione, waiting expectantly for a response.
"No way." Hermione refused immediately.
"Come on." The girls complained. "Dress shopping with all of us. It'll be fun!"
"Yeah, Hermione. Come on! I really think you should come this time."
"No."
"But—"
Lily pinched the hem of Hermione's uniform shirt, turned to her sister with her best form of puppy dog eyes, and opened her mouth to speak.
"No, Lily. I'm not going dress shopping at Hogsmeade." Hermione interrupted before a single word got out. She tugged her clothes out of her sister's desperate grasp then turned to the other girls with a smile, "I'll see you all in Potions."
"You didn't eat!" Lily called out, but Hermione left without looking back.
…
"Do you have a girlfriend, Avery?"
"What?"
"A girlfriend," Hermione repeated.
Avery sneered. "Just shut up and prepare the Salamander blood, I'm crushing the Griffin claw." He watched her calmly pick up the live Fire Dwelling Salamander in the glass container and euthanize it with ease, even with a slight smile on her face. A shiver went down his spine.
"No, I don't have a girlfriend."
"Not even a date for the Ball coming up? So, you have no one to ask?"
Avery internally panicked, thinking this was a hint for him to ask her. It was no big secret that Hermione Evans was boyfriend-less and pretty much friendless her entire Hogwarts life. This meant that she had no one else to go to the Yule Ball with.
"No, no one." He replied, maintaining an expressionless face.
"You should ask Cornelia." Hermione gestured to the cute-looking Slytherin girl to the side of the room. "She's cute, and I think she fancies you."
"I am an Avery." He scoffed, as his shoulders began to release tension when he realized that Hermione wasn't hinting at him to ask her to the Ball.
In retrospect, Avery realized how ridiculous that idea was. Hermione Evans may be friendless, but that didn't mean she was desperate. They weren't friends, they were barely friendly, and they didn't tolerate each other enough to go to a ball together.
"An Avery does not simply take any rift raft to the Ball. It is a societal event, not that a muggleborn like you would understand." He told her, putting his nose up at the notion of himself dating a lowly pureblood, but his eyes traveled to the Slytherin across the room.
"Well, there's the Hogsmeade weekend before the Ball. Take her there and see how the two of you click and then decide if she's worth taking to the Ball." When Avery looked like he was going to argue again, Hermione cut him off. "Going on one Hogsmeade date does not constitute marriage. Don't you want some dating experience and freedom before you graduate, and you're forced into an arranged marriage?"
"How do you know I'm getting an arranged marriage?"
"Aren't you all?" She gestured to the Purebloods in the room: Avery, Sirius, and Travers. "I hear even Mulciber's got an unlucky lady planned out for him too. So, have you met your lady?"
"She's…from Austria."
Hermione gave no reaction.
"She is of noble blood and she's pretty."
"You don't need to defend your future wife to me, Avery. I don't care."
"You don't look like you believe me." He defended as he started grinding the claw again, this time the anger towards the girl next to him fueling his vigorous movement.
"I believe you, now stop grinding that claw into nothing," Hermione said as she quickly pulled the mortar and pestle away from Avery.
There was a moment of silence as he watched Evans carefully grind the claws before a hesitant question escaped his lips. "H-how do you know Cornelia likes me?"
Hermione suppressed a chuckle, "Whenever she looks this direction, which she does often, and I lean towards you, like this," she leaned close to him. "Daggers come shooting out of her eyes and try to stab me."
"Oh."
A few minutes passed, but Avery couldn't seem to focus on the tasks at hand. He fumbled around with the ingredients, spilled some of their distilled water, and nearly knocked over their mortar and pestle. But it was when Avery nearly took off one of his fingers with the cleaver did Hermione finally decide, enough was enough.
"For fucks sake," Hermione growled at the suddenly foolish butterfingered boy. "Just say what you want, so that we can make this potion with some peace."
"H-how do girls like being asked out?" Avery's eyes sparkled, giving away his excitement at the prospect of going to the Ball with a girl as pretty as Cornelia Fletcher.
"I think somewhere private and sincere would work better. You've seen James Potter's grand gestures, haven't you? He's never gotten a date out of my sister, so I think quiet might be the better route. So, even if you do fail—which I'm not saying you will—no one will know. I won't even know."
Avery highly doubted Evans wouldn't find out somehow but glanced up at the girl sitting a few seats to the front. Her hair was braided into rows as usual, but she'd tied the hair up to prevent it from getting into the ingredients or the fire. Her dark skin looked soft and her big lips inviting.
He cleared his throat.
"Why are you being nice? What aren't you telling me?"
Hermione nodded in approval, Avery had come a long way since first year if he was able to pick up these nuances. He was a proper Slytherin now. Deciding not to drag this out any longer she sighed and leaned in, ignoring the stinging gaze of Fletcher.
"I have a plan on how you can take your OWLS, but you're not going to like it."
Avery frowned at her pause.
"Did you enjoy Mulciber's lovely performance during breakfast?" Hermione asked Avery while she adjusted the fire for their potion.
"So it was you."
She smirked, "it was a trial run for the spell I've been working on since I assume you'll be opposed to the Imperius Curse."
"How is that spell any different from the Unforgivable?" He whispered furiously.
"It's plenty different. Your freewill will still exist, it's just been suppressed slightly. It's more of an enticing suggestion on how you should act than anything else. Like that voice that tells you to have ice cream for dinner even though you know there is not enough nutritional value in ice cream for it to be considered a meal." She shrugged. "You can say no, but will you? Probably not."
"You made this spell?"
"Yes, it'll be impossible to tract because I'm the only one who knows it." She clearly didn't understand how incredible she was for making such a complicated spell.
Avery shook his head, wondering what kind of girl he entangled himself with. "You need to do more trials to work out any kinks in the spell, but fine, we'll use your spell."
"Trust me. There are a great many things I'm going to be coercing Mulciber to do."
…
Hermione pulled herself up and lay precariously on her back, balancing on the ledge of the Astronomy tower, later that evening. The winter winds cut through her clothes, but she was impervious to the temperature. She liked the cold. It made her feel alive.
She carefully took out the note that Malfoy had left in her possession after the Championship had ended. She traced the delicate curves of his impeccable handwriting and thought back to his lips pressed against her sensitive skin by her ribs. She had brushed off the event as a moment of teenage horniness, but she was just fooling herself.
"You're certainly popular," Harry noted. "Not that you weren't popular back then, I mean, you did attract the attention of a world-famous Quidditch star."
"Yeah, and I also attracted duds like McLaggen too."
"Eh, you were just a shining light, it's not your fault what kind of moths you attracted."
Hermione managed a smile at Harry's analogy but frowned when she looked down at the piece of paper again. "I didn't want to attract this kind."
"Do you think attraction is also hereditary? I mean Draco had a crush on you too."
"Malfoy did not have a crush on me." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Hm, maybe not, but he did have his jaw slightly slacked during the Yule Ball."
Hermione scoffed, "So did you."
She didn't need to look at her best friend to know that he's nodded. "Yeah, I did." He admitted. "You looked great that night, but Malfoy stared all night."
"Stop."
"I'd be okay if you went for Sirius."
Hermione's fingers stopped tracing the quill markings. "Harry. Stop."
"Lucius, that'll take me a while to get used to, but I know he's not the worst. You could help him be a better man."
"Enough!" She crumpled the paper into her fist, then sat up, furiously turning to her best friend. "It's not my job to make people better men. Besides, shouldn't you want me to not waste my life with such frivolous things and focus on the main objective?"
"Exactly, I don't want you to waste your life. Life is more than a mission."
"It's not just a mission!"
"Fine, one big fucking mission!" He corrected. "But to spend an entire lifetime just for that one thing?"
"So, you're saying you want me to go have sex with Lucius Malfoy?" Hermione challenged.
Harry looked at her like she was a bag with rotten organic waste, that exploded all over him.
"See?"
"But I won't stop you if that's what you want. All I'm saying is, enjoy this life. Enjoy being young again! Go see a concert! I mean you'll be able to watch Led Zepplin, Queen, The Who, and literally, all the greatest British bands live."
"You do realize you only discovered those artists by going through my parents' records in the early 2000s?"
"Go see your parents."
That was an interesting idea, being able to see Jean and Howard Granger in their twenties but she shook her head. She was disrupting enough lives in this timeline; it'd be best to leave her parents out of this.
"My takeaway from this conversation is still going to be you telling me to have sex with Lucius Malfoy."
"You suck." Harry grimaced in disgust.
Hermione giggled, "Love you too, Harry."
"Who are you talking to?"
Hermione gasped at the unexpected sound of an intruder, unable to hear them coming due to the sounds of the wind howling against her ears and her conversation with Harry. She quickly grabbed her wand out of her side to attack, only to drop the slip of paper that had Malfoy's address.
"No!" Hermione screamed. "Accio note!"
The light piece of parchment battled against the harsh winds but made its way into her hands. Once it was within reaching distance, she leaned dangerously over the ledge to snatch it in mid-air.
"Woah!" The intruder ran out from the shadows of the tower and onto the balcony to wrap his arms around her waist and pulled her back from the ledge. However, unable to control his strength the two fell backward, onto the floor with Hermione on top of him.
"Ugh!" he groaned.
"Sirius?" Hermione jumped off him, recognizing his voice. She extended her arm to help him up.
"Are you crazy?" Sirius demanded, eyes wide with worry. "Why the hell were you on that ledge? What's so important about that note that you'd throw yourself over it?!"
"I have impeccable balance," Hermione told him, and it was true. She was a fox. "I wasn't going to fall, you just overreacted."
Sirius let out a scoff, "Oh my bad for wanting to save your life. That note must be important for you to gamble on your life like that… What does it say?"
Hermione gripped the note tighter in her hand. There was no way that Sirius wouldn't know the address to Malfoy Manor, he'd realize what the note was and who wrote it, instantly. Nothing was going on between her and Lucius, and nothing was going on between her and Sirius, but there was a stab of guilt that forced her to place the note into her back pocket, away from Sirius's prying eyes.
"It's private." She told him vaguely.
"Is it a love letter?" Sirius asked a joking smile curled on his lips. "Is that why you're here? Because you were waiting for some guy to kiss you below the stars?"
"It's none of your business, besides," Hermione pointed at him. "Isn't that why you'd be here? To kiss some girl under the stars?"
Actually, Sirius had come here because he saw Hermione at the Astronomy Tower on the Marauder's Map, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd grabbed James's Invisibility Cloak and was running up the steps of the tower.
"Wait, you're really here to meet a guy?" Sirius asked, immediately recognizing her change of topic for what it was: avoidance. His smile slipped off his face as he anxiously studied her face.
"No, it's not a guy." She promised.
Sirius's stiff body relaxed.
"I'm just up here because I wanted some fresh air."
"And the note?"
"This is private and personal Sirius." Refusing to show him. "But no, it's not a love note." At least Hermione thought it wasn't a love note. To be fair, an address and bloody mark was not exactly a declaration of undying love.
"If a bloody mark that will grant you access to his ancestral home isn't a declaration of undying love, I don't know what is. Especially from Lucius Malfoy? He might as well be asking you to be his mistress." Harry shook her head at Hermione's denial.
She clenched her jaw, doing her very best not to snap at the apparition of her best friend.
Sirius narrowed his eyes, clearly suspicious, but everything about Hermione's body language was telling him not to ask. Although it irked him, he decided to let it go.
"It's dinner soon, don't you want to come down and eat?" Sirius asked, "I didn't see you at the Great Hall during breakfast or during lunch."
Hermione shook her head, "No, I want to rest. Today's been a tiring day."
"Is it because of the aftermath of your injury from yesterday?" Sirius asked. He reached out to steady her, even though she wasn't stumbling.
"No," She pushed his hand down. "I'm just tired, and I need to go see Dumbledore about this stupid ball."
"The ball?"
"I don't want to attend. I feel like Dumbledore's parading us around, me specifically, as some trophy champion, showing the Ministry how great the school is and how equally muggleborns are treated. I don't want to be a tool for the Headmaster to get more funding and donations from the Ministry."
"You think the ball is for that?"
"Why else would it happen?"
"A celebration of our achievements?" Sirius shrugged.
Hermione let out a small laugh at Sirius's naivety, "Then why not celebrate every year?"
Sirius opened his mouth, then quickly closed it again when he couldn't think of a reason.
"It's a pointless show, so I'm not going to attend."
The two stood in the cold for a while, both lost in their own thoughts until Sirius broke the silence.
"I came searching for you." He admitted. "I'm sorry. I know you sent letters after…after I found out about Uncle Alphard. I'm sorry I ignored them."
"Oh," Hermione nodded. "It's okay. Everyone handles grief differently."
"Which is so weird because I've spent a fraction of the time you've probably spent with him, but I was gutted. Uncle Alphard was more than just an uncle to me. He was… me? The proverbial black sheep of the Black family, other than 'Meda. He was like my hope, my future. Being independent of my goddamn family, not falling for their ideals, and living my own life. It's how I want to live."
"You can still live like that." Hermione patted the steps that led down the Astronomy tower, inviting him to sit.
Sirius hesitated but sat next to her. Her deep mature eyes felt like the universe was staring back at him. They held secrets of her own, of that much he knew. He wasn't sure if he should burden her with secrets of her own, but she was so inviting that it bubbled out of him before he knew it.
"You remember my Boggart, right?" Sirius recalled. "That horribly snobby blood-purist son a bitch."
"It was you."
"Exactly." Sirius nodded vigorously. "All these years in Hogwarts, I think I've changed, yet sometimes these thoughts and old habits pop up. I feel like I'm right back where I was in first year when I was dropped off at King's Cross Station to take the Hogwarts Express with my parents' voice whispering prejudice in my ear."
Sirius clenched his jaw, his face scrunched up and his eyes blazed with contempt for himself.
"Uncle Alphard grew up like me, he was even in Slytherin, but he managed to get away from all my family's madness. I looked up to him, but to find out he was dying…I feel so lost. So aimless."
Hermione smiled as she reached out to grab his warm hands.
"You have nothing to worry about," Hermione promised.
"Hermione," Sirius shook his head at her seemingly empty words.
She squeezed his hands to bring his focus back to her. "I'll let you in on a secret. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. Everyone thinks something bad about someone else with no proof. But it doesn't make you a horrible person. It's never the first thought that defines you. Those are the thoughts that you've been conditioned to think by your upbringing, by society, by the media. The second thought and your actions are what defines you."
"You really think so?"
Hermione nodded, "We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. Sirius, you've repeatedly shown who you are by embracing muggle culture, making friends regardless of their blood status and societal standing, and standing up to people who use those derogatory terms. The fact that you're so concerned about bettering yourself already shows that you're better than your prejudiced family."
He smiled, feeling truly relieved for the first time in nearly a month.
"I really shouldn't have ignored your letters and talked to you sooner."
Hermione smiled and Sirius's heart stopped. How was it possible that such a simple action could bring about such a large reaction? She was still holding his hand, her small ones trying to cover his larger ones, it was adorable how small they were compared to his. Without even thinking, he closed the distance between them.
"What if I was the reason?" He asked, his breath tickling her skin.
"What?"
"What if I was the reason you went to the ball?"
There was tension everywhere in his body, as he stared intensely down at her, his eyes flickering between her eyes and her lips.
"Sirius?" Her breathy whisper could be felt on his neck, sending tingles down his spine.
He didn't respond, just let out a shuddering sigh. He was using all his energy to stay still, knowing sudden actions could scare her, but nothing could stop his body from having natural reactions to attraction. His heart started racing and his pupils were dilated as he looked at her with unmistakable lust.
Hermione's heart raced. She thought back to their brief kisses in the past. They weren't passionate, lust, or attraction-driven, but for an ulterior purpose. However, right now, there was an air around them that told her if they kissed, it would be nothing like the ones from the past. A long-forgotten fire ignited in her lower belly, something she hadn't felt in a long time.
Sirius had honestly thought about kissing Hermione Evans on more than one occasion, probably far too many times to be considered appropriate. He could tell by her short breaths that she could feel what was about to happen. He could feel it in his bones that what they were going to experience would be like an explosion of pleasure.
He trembled in anticipation. With any other girl (and even some guys) Sirius could confidently say that they wouldn't reject him if he leaned in for a kiss, but this was the Hermione Evans. He wanted her, but he needed to know that she wanted him as well. He wanted her to decide to kiss him, knowing that this time would be nothing like the past kisses she initiated.
The desire to claim her lips burned in him like a firecracker, but he made sure that his hands around her waist were loose, refusing to let his hands wrap around the back of her head and around her waist to pull her toward him.
His eyes roamed down to her chest, watching them press against him every time she took a breath. He looked up, reaching back to her eyes to see her hazel orbs frantically thinking through every scenario on what to do.
"Kiss me." He begged.
His words were like the shot of the starter pistol. Her lips pushed forward in haste and their lips crashed. His hands gripped her waist, pulling her closer, closing what little distance they had between each other. Her fingers knotted into his locks as she deepened their kiss almost instantly after their lips met.
Like two pressure cookers, the release was like an explosion of endorphins, startling and relieving. Their kiss had no pace, it was frantic and hard. Their teeth bumped, tongues danced, and limbs got tangled, but it didn't matter, they just needed to feel each other in any way possible.
She felt his hands move up the back of her spine and into her hair, his nails scraping her scalp, she shuddered and clenched her legs together as pleasure coursed through her body.
Sirius couldn't believe this was happening, despite it happening. He clung to her desperately. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever met. He wanted her to be his and he wanted to be hers.
Everything about this was so different from what she knew. Her previous relationship with Ron developed with friendship, hardships, heartache, and time. This friction she felt, literally and metaphorically, with Sirius was so sudden, but she couldn't deny its magic.
The way he held her tight, gripping her for dear life, made her want to do the same. Sirius was one of the few figures in the future which she knew. Just like how Alphard was more than just her healer, Sirius was more than just a boy. He'd always meant something to her, but until now she couldn't define it.
He was home.
Sirius grinded his hips into her pelvis, the pressure and friction made her legs go weak. She'd forgotten what physical pleasure felt like. It had been 15 long years since the last time she felt anything like this.
And what bliss.
When they finally broke for air, Sirius didn't give her time to think as he moved his kisses to her ear and down her neck.
"Be my date. Be my date to the Ball, Hermione Evans."
There was no way she could say no.
…