Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. JK Rowling owns Harry Potter. I write for entertainment and never for pay.
Author's Note: I apologize for the delayed release of this story. I am still working on it, and I would only ask that you bear with me. Updates are on the way, but life is also a bit busy, especially in the crazy that is 2020. Thank you for hanging with me, and enjoy this chapter!
The Second Sixth Year of Sirius Black: Chapter Two
By: Rae
-A "Harry Potter" Fic-
The next day brought news of a meeting with Nicole Stubbins for later that afternoon. Hermione woke early that day to hear Madam Pomfrey going through her store cupboards and muttering to herself in a voice too low to understand. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and yawned before turning to look at her companion.
Sirius lay in the bed next to her, flat on his back, his eyes shut and mouth partially open. His stillness was a bit unnerving, but she remembered he could barely move his muscles right now, so she chalked it up to his recuperation. Hermione watched the steady rise and fall of his chest and began to really study him as he slept.
She noticed the differences between a younger Sirius and the older one she'd first met. His time in Azkaban really dulled him around the edges, washing his skin out from lack of exposure to the sun, taking the luster from his thick locks of hair, and driving the gleam from his eyes. But there were other things, too. He'd been wounded in Azkaban, mostly from attempts to escape the horror of the Dementors. His nails had been ragged and dirty when he'd first come back, but they retained a weakness she'd noticed. They stayed weak and broke easily and remained rather ragged despite his efforts to maintain their shape and smoothness. Several times she'd seen Sirius filing his nails when he thought no one was looking.
Then there was his skin. This younger Sirius had a deeper color to his skin, more of a peach tone that was whole and unblemished. His older self was washed out and pockmarked from something she couldn't name. The ink of his various tattoos was brighter in his younger self as well, and she wondered where all he had tattoos.
She continued to look at him quietly, not bothering to move from her cozy place under the covers. The beds weren't the soft ones of her dorm, but they were comfortable enough when she was curled up under loads of blankets. It was rather cool in the Hospital Wing this morning, and she wanted nothing more than to stay in the warmth and maybe have a bit of hot cocoa to top it off.
The doors opening caught her attention, and she looked over to see Remus entering the room with his arms loaded down with food. He had Snape following him, carrying four steaming mugs of something Hermione very much hoped was the cocoa she'd been thinking of. As they drew closer, she smelled the delicious scents of breakfast, and her stomach rumbled in anticipation.
"Good morning, Hermione," Remus called as he got closer. He smiled at her and winked as she eyed the food in his arms. "I hope you're hungry."
"You know I am," she retorted good-naturedly and grinned. "And good morning to you, too, Remus."
Snape scowled at her with a harrumph, but she ignored the unspoken chastisement in favor of the food Remus now offered her. Hermione pushed herself to a seated position, reclining against the bed frame and took the proffered items. She received a plate full of eggs, bacon, sausage, and hot rolls and felt her mouth watering from hunger.
Eating nearly as fast as she'd gotten onto Ron for, Hermione devoured her entire plate of food in minutes. Remus had taken two of the cups from Snape and put them on the table between her and Sirius's beds. She leaned over now and grabbed her cup, finding it filled almost to the brim with hot cocoa. Hermione sighed, leaned back, and began to sip her hot cocoa, not noticing the glances of the other two men.
Madam Pomfrey bustled over then, carrying her healing draught with her. She pushed past the two men who were also sipping their own beverages and began to perform her regular diagnostics charms on Hermione. She tutted a bit as she did so and made notes on the chart she'd kept on her patient.
Finishing her charms, she looked at Hermione and said, "I believe I've done all I can for you, my dear. Your blood cells have completely regenerated as planned, and you're back to full health. I can see your appetite has returned as well." Hermione blushed. "So once Professor Dumbledore returns for the meeting, I think we can discharge you from my care."
"The meeting?" Hermione asked. "What meeting?"
"The meeting with Nicole Stubbins that Horace arranged," Snape drawled. "He's set it for this afternoon, shortly after lunch, so you'll need to be ready to answer some uncomfortable questions."
Hermione refused to let him goad her and said, "Oh, so I guess she'll be learning about Sirius then?"
"Not exactly," Remus hedged uncomfortably. "Dumbledore has asked Tonks to put him under a disillusionment charm. We'll be introducing him as someone completely different so that she doesn't know who he is."
"Great," came a voice from the bed next to her. "I'm going to be turned into a snout-nosed, purple-headed freak."
Hermione turned to see the comical gaze of a horrified Sirius Black attempting to reach for his thick, lustrous locks of hair. His eyes widened in mock horror, he grimaced at Remus. Lupin rolled his eyes in return and only said, "So the man of the hour finally awakens. Did you get enough beauty sleep?"
"Not enough if my cousin's going to be charming my good looks away," Sirius replied cheekily, making Hermione snicker. "But if I must, I suppose I'll do it for the good of the cause." He now affected a lofty tone but ruined it with a smirk.
"You'll do it whether you want to or not," Snape told him with a sneer. "You don't have a choice in your condition, Black."
Sirius didn't have the chance to reply as Madam Pomfrey took that moment to shove a spoon in his open mouth. His eyes widened in surprise, and he nearly gagged on how far the spoon made it into his throat but recovered enough to swallow the potion she gave him. He coughed when she removed the spoon but kept silent as she performed the same diagnostics charms on him as well.
"Well, Mister Black," Madam Pomfrey said, "it seems you are recovering as well. Your blood count is up to 70 percent of where it should be. A few more doses of the healing draught and you should be back to 100 percent. As to your musculature, it appears the blood replenishing is doing a good job of helping the atrophy, but you will certainly need a little rehabilitation once you have completed the healing draught. I think we'll wait and see how that looks when you can try with your full strength."
"So I should be able to get my full strength back?" Sirius asked her hopefully. The MediWitch nodded at him, and he laughed happily.
Madam Pomfrey left the group to go tend to some other potions she was working on, and Snape cut in to Sirius's merriment with a snide comment, "I imagine it will be hard to be stuck back in Headquarters once you reach your full strength. We all know how hard it was on you last year." He sneered at the other man.
Sirius glared but stayed mostly still. "I would be happy to show you just how hard it was to remain cooped up in Headquarters if you'd like, Snivellus."
"Now, now," Remus said, breaking up the menacing glares of the two former rivals, "it won't do to bring up old anger. You know what Dumbledore has said, and yet you both insist on bringing your anger up over and over again. Part of the problems we've been sorting out is dealing with trust issues, and you two were always the worst!"
The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor glared at both of them and said, "Sirius, you're here now, and we're going to have to work out what that looks like since the Ministry and Voldemort think you're dead. Severus, I know you hate Sirius, but you have to work with him, and that's just the way it is. You don't have to like each other, but you need to get over your hatred enough to work together."
Sirius glared at Snape a moment longer before hanging his head again. "You're right, Moony, old friend," he said. "As always, you're right. But you know how it is. There's no love lost between Severus and me. And I don't think we'll ever get along."
"Something we can agree on, Black?" Snape asked softly. He quirked an eyebrow at the bedridden Marauder and added, "I can agree to civility for the sake of the cause if you can. Though I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me Snivellus. You know that was Potter's nickname for me and I detest it." His eyes hardened as he met Sirius's gaze.
Slowly Sirius nodded. "Fine," he said. "I can do civility, I suppose. And I'll try to remember not to call you that. No guarantees it won't slip out, though."
Snape sighed and then looked to Remus. "It seems they're willing to do their part, so you'd best fill them in while I go find Horace. He's taking me to meet Miss Stubbins in an hour and then we'll head back here." Without so much as a goodbye, Snape whirled around, robes billowing, and headed back to the door.
Remus watched him, shaking his head at the other man. "I suppose I should just go ahead and tell you both what Dumbledore has said," he told them, looking at the two in the beds. "He's concerned you'll both suffer some unusual side effects from the incantation, and he thinks Nicole Stubbins might be able to interpret some of those, but he doesn't want it getting out that there is a real incantation to bring the dead back to life, so he's going to try negotiating with her to keep this silent."
"Fat chance of that," Sirius inserted with a snort. "Considering someone was just brought back to life through portrait charming. What portrait charmer wouldn't want to shout that from the rooftops? How much business would that bring in? 'Become immortal with a portrait and a promise: resurrection or your money back!'"
Hermione chuckled at the image he created but knew it was only too true. To have the ability to bring someone back from the dead was not only a huge triumph, but in this case, it very well could change the course of history for portrait charmers and bring in more business than they dreamed of making.
"We've considered that, Sirius," Remus now said, "and so we did some digging into Miss Stubbin's background. It seems she's been vocal in her opposition of You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters. In the first war, she lost several family members to him and the only reason she wasn't approached to join the Order seems to be her age. She was much younger then, too young to join us at the time."
"Young, huh?" Sirius's eyes lit up. "I wonder what she looks like." His gaze grew unfocused as he began daydreaming.
Hermione glared at him, not sure what made her feel annoyed at his implication, and asked Remus, "So what if she doesn't agree to secrecy? Will we still talk to her?"
"Yes, we will," Remus said, hedging a moment before adding, "but Dumbledore will give her only a partial truth, and he wanted us to discuss it in case we have to have stories that agree with one another." He looked uncomfortable.
"What kind of stories?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
"Dumbledore decided the closest we could come to the truth was if you said that you were trying to paint a portrait of Sirius and had strange side effects come over you from using blood in your charms," Remus explained, taking in a deep breath and studying her as he did so.
Hermione began to work out what the problem was. Remus looked uncomfortably embarrassed, and she wasn't sure why. She decided to ask. "What is it, Remus?" He looked down at the floor. "Whatever it is, I can handle it."
This caught Sirius's attention, and he now looked up from his reverie. "What's up, Moony?" He asked. "It sounds like Dumbledore has a plan, so we can relax, right?"
Remus sighed and said, "There are some other texts about portrait charming, mostly restricted texts, but they do exist. In some of the blood charms and potions for portraits, there has to be a close connection between the charmer and subject in order for the charm to work." He paused, and Hermione remembered reading in Lord Henry's diary about the need for a close relationship to the subject. She was beginning to see where this was going.
Remus continued, "So if Miss Stubbins does not agree to utter silence, we'll be telling her that you decided to do this at the behest of your boyfriend, Hermione." He spoke quickly but couldn't stop from adding, "And it will have to be clear that you are intimate with one another in order for her to believe the level of connection Madam Pomfrey has discovered between you."
"What?" Hermione's voice was faint as she processed this. Her mind whirled with what she'd just heard. So she would be assumed to be one of those girls that Mrs. Weasley had always seemed so keen to believe of her. She shuddered at that thought and glanced to Sirius to find his mouth gaping.
"Moony," Sirius breathed slowly, "you're saying I'd be expected to be…well…shagging Hermione here?" She watched him closely and couldn't read his expression. He avoided her gaze. "I'm not sure we're close enough, despite all the time we spent together these last few months, to pretend that, mate." He shook his head, still avoiding her gaze.
"Surely we could think of something else?" Hermione said softly, trying not to panic. "Perhaps we're related? Brother and sister? Something?"
"Yeah, siblings!" Sirius chimed in, seeming to relax at Hermione's suggestion. "We could pretend to be brother and sister, and that would explain our closeness, right, Moony? I could do that. Hermione's practically a relation anyway since she's Harry's best friend."
Hermione smiled faintly at the compliment but turned her stricken gaze back to Remus, hoping this idea would work because something about the idea of pretending to be Sirius's girlfriend was unsettling. She decided to think about that later and focus on Remus now.
"I'm afraid we've already thought of that," Remus said, "but Dumbledore rejected the idea because we need to show you have a much closer relationship than simple siblings share. It's not just about blood. If it was, it wouldn't be an issue. But it's about the magical relationship between the two of you. To be honest, Dumbledore and I both wonder about how there could be such a close bond formed through the reincarnation incantation between you two without having had an intimate relationship. Based on the book and the work of Lord Henry Wotton, we think there has to be some essential connection we're missing."
Hermione felt her cheeks heat up but knew there was no point in trying to deny Lord Henry's work. The man literally wrote the book on the subject, but Hermione also thought that she should receive some credit for determining how to pull all the pieces together successfully. She attributed the bond Madam Pomfrey had noted to her use of both the incantation and the potion. Using both would have made a much stronger connection between them, and she did lose a lot of blood. She found herself trying not to pout before the two men who were still talking. Hermione didn't want them to belittle her for her youth after all.
"I suppose if we must pretend intimacy, I'd much prefer to do it with Hermione here," Sirius was saying as she tuned back into the conversation. "She does challenge me so with her wit and intellect." He turned now to grin at her and said, "I think if we have enough time, we can come up with a story. What do you say, Hermione?" His gaze turned roguish as he winked at her.
Hermione's cheeks flared up again with heat, but this time it came with a warmth that had little to do with embarrassment and more to do with the feeling of being wanted. She gave her head a mental shake, reminding herself it was all pretend and forced a smile. This could be fun, she supposed.
Meeting Sirius's eyes, she smirked and said, "Me shagging Sirius Black? Half my dorm would faint from the very idea of it. I think we can make this work." Sirius's jaw dropped as she winked at him in turn and then turned to give Remus a veritable Cheshire cat grin. "So, Remus, how much time do we have to make up our relationship?"
Remus seemed as taken aback at the sudden change in his student as Sirius was, but he recovered quickly and glanced at clock hanging above the door to the hospital ward. "Nicole will be arriving at 1 pm to talk to Professor Dumbledore, and that will only take about a half hour unless she agrees to complete secrecy. So you'll have the next three hours to get your story together," he told her.
"Do we know what name Sirius will be given?" Hermione asked, now serious and ready to make sure all the details were correct.
"I rather fancied the name Stubby Boardman," Tonks said, walking into the room. She grinned at the three in the room and greeted them, "Wotcher there, Hermione! Sirius, I never thought I'd see you again," her voice fell an octave as she looked unusually grave. She moved forward and tripped over the bedpost, landing on top of her cousin in her attempt to give him a hug. "Whoops! Well, I'm really glad to see you, cousin!" She wrapped her arms awkwardly around Sirius and squeezed, causing him to squirm uncomfortably.
Remus stepped forward to help her up, and Hermione noticed the longing glance she gave him. As soon as she was on her feet, though, he let go of her arms and stepped away. Tonks's eyes shifted uncomfortably and she turned to Hermione instead.
"What do you think, Hermione?" She asked, switching gears, her eyes now twinkling merrily. "Stubby Boardman's a good name for Sirius, dontcha think?" She smirked, her pink hair shining vibrantly.
Hermione thought for a moment. She knew she'd heard that name before. It took her a minute or two of racking her brains for the name before she remembered. She burst out laughing, surprising the two Maurauders.
"Figured it out, did you?" Tonks asked, laughing with her.
"Care to fill us in?" Sirius asked, eyeing the two witches warily. Remus looked curious as well, his brows quirked.
Hermione caught her breath and explained, "Stubby Boardman was the name the Quibbler gave you when you were on the run in fourth year. Some crazy lady said Sirius Black was just an alias for Stubby Boardman, the lead singer of some band I can't remember. She was older, and I think she thought you had a fling with her at some point." She chuckled a bit at the memory of that article that she'd scoffed at so long ago.
Sirius looked amused at that but said, "Well, she might be right, you know. I did get around." Hermione stopped laughing and glared at the man next to her. He chuckled and told her, "Don't worry, Hermione. It won't hurt our deep and abiding relationship. And Tonks, I think Stubby Boardman is a wonderful name." He was still laughing as he told her to give Dumbledore the update on his information.
"So how old is Stubby Boardman?" Hermione asked, ignoring the still laughing Marauder. "Is he in my year at Hogwarts or ahead of me? I think it would make more sense for him to be a year ahead of me, don't you?"
Remus nodded absently. "Sure, we can say he's older than you, Hermione. Gryffindor seventh year would work."
Hermione nodded to herself. "Well, I guess we need to come up with our story now," she said to Sirius and Remus. "And I'll need both of you to help me."
The two men looked at her askance as Tonks made her way out of the hospital wing to update Dumbledore.
She rolled her eyes. "You're my professor," she said patiently, pointing at Remus. "And you're my 'boyfriend,'" she said to Sirius. "I need both of you to help me come up with a convincing story for Nicole." Clapping her hands, she grinned. "So, let's get started!"