Chapter 18 – A Fool's Errand

Hermione threw down her quill in disgust and closed her eyes.

This would never do.

How was it possible? All these well-known examples, all these prized relationships, and yet not a single one could give her a path to follow? Lend a bit of guidance?

It was beyond frustrating.

Thwarted, her mind strayed back to earlier in the day.

They had been fairly quiet after their tryst on the kitchen table: many shared looks and furtive, amused glances at both each other and the piece of furniture in question, but no real discussion of the sexual chemistry still burning between them.

No talking.

Then, early in the afternoon, Sirius had led Hermione by the hand up the stairs and into the tiny bath across the landing. Turning on the water, he had kissed her long and deep, stripped off their clothes, and then pulled her into the shower with him.

In between kisses, they had actually tried to wash themselves — even though Hermione was fairly certain Sirius' tergeo spell had more than taken care of any mess from earlier — but the space was still very cramped.

"This is surprisingly awkward," Hermione had announced, trying not to hit his face with her raised elbow as she shampooed her hair. "It always looks so passionate and sexy in the films, but it's really just one person standing under the water at a time, isn't it?"

Sirius had smirked. "It's a bit different if you're, ah, joined."

She had giggled. "'Joined'? Did I miss you wandering off into the eighteenth century when I wasn't looking?"

Growling playfully, he had lightly swatted her hip. "Shut up and turn around."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Baffled, Hermione had spun on the ball of her foot, letting the shower spray hit her chest instead of between her shoulder blades.

Immediately, Sirius' arms had encircled her, cupping her breasts. He feathered her nipples between his fingers before palming the soft globes and moving his slick, sudsy hands up and down her sensitive skin. His erection nudged her bum cheeks. "You see?" he'd murmured in her ear. "Because, now, I can do this." His lips had moved lightly across the back of her neck, making her arch and gasp as the water pulsed around them. "Still think this feels too awkward?"

"N—no," she had sighed, tilting her head back against his bare shoulder. "You're convincing me otherwise."

"Good girl."

She would have agreed with him even more, but then Sirius had dropped to his knees. One hand had splayed against her stomach, pushing her back against the shower wall's white tiles, while the other had hitched her leg up over his shoulder, parting her nether lips to his lascivious gaze.

"Do you want me to taste you again?"

Sirius had stared at her folds as his voice echoed off the tiles, unable to drag his eyes away from the sight before him.

Hermione had let out a confirming whimper.

Briefly glancing down, she'd seen his dark head between her legs and then the impressive length of his hard cock jutting out from between his own. The shower's spray was hitting the small of his back, sending droplets in all directions, but Sirius clearly didn't care.

Neither did she.

"I can still taste you," he'd whispered harshly. "I've been tasting you on my tongue for hours. I can't stop myself."

Still holding her firmly in place, he had dragged his tongue up her hot centre in one long lick.

"Do you like seeing me on my knees like this?" he'd asked as she groaned at his wicked touch. "Do you like seeing how much I can't resist you?" His tongue teased at her entrance, flicking gently. "Because you taste like you do."

He had given Hermione another searing lick, just to be sure.

The whiteness of the tiny bathroom brightened past all colour and light, even behind her eyes.

Completely unhurried, Sirius had tasted her again, and again, sucking at her clit, nipping briefly with his teeth, before pulling back and watching as she'd arched towards him, her body chasing his mouth.

Hermione couldn't stop the moan that filled her throat. She'd whimpered again, needing more.

That had made Sirius laugh: the chuckle of a smug, sexy male who knew exactly what he was doing to her. Half a second later, he'd brought his mouth fully against her again, his tongue slowly pumping in and out, coaxing her to a release that barrelled towards her.

When he added one finger, and then a second, she'd thought she might scream. Maybe she had done.

"You like it when I stretch you, don't you?"

"Yesssss," she'd whispered, before rolling her head against the unyielding tile.

Worries about falling, about slipping, about embarrassing herself or acting too boldly completely left her. There had just been Sirius, and his mouth, and his fingers, and her own secret knowledge of just what his every touch meant to her. How each kiss and lick and caress made her love for him spin higher and higher, until the only fear left in her was that she might actually say it out loud.

When Hermione came, the rush hit her like a rogue wave, crashing over every line of her body. His only answer was a low growl of need. Sirius became completely ravenous on feeling her clamp down on his fingers and fly apart. He hadn't stopped until her fingers were fisted tight in his hair, holding him to her core as she rode his fingers and his tongue until she had nothing left.

Nothing but a need to make him feel the same.

Rising to his feet, Sirius had begun to stroke his cock beneath the stream of hot water, moving to rest his arm on the wall just below the showerhead.

Hermione, still breathing in ragged gasps and not entirely sure if her feet could hold her, moved to kiss his back, her hands softly encircling his body as the water cascaded down from the top of his head. Pressing her naked length against him, she let her hand rest on top of his as he fisted himself, learning his strokes, his rhythm, how he moved slowly at first, building the feeling, and then with lighter, faster thrusts as his own climax beckoned. All the while, her mouth had never stopped teasing his skin. She'd felt him press back into her kisses, as if he knew innately how much she craved to be a part of this, part of his finish, even if it was so far from what he really needed.

In the end, she'd been amazed at the sheer force pouring out of his body as he came, so much so that she, too, had felt an answering echo in her own bones as his legs stiffened and he'd muffled a sharp cry into his arm.

Within moments, any trace of the tumult that had just rocked them both was washed down the drain.

Sirius had switched off the water, his hand slipping from where it had been braced against the tiles to squeeze her own.

"You should go dry yourself."

But when, reluctantly, she'd tried to unwrap her arm from around his back and waist, he hadn't let her go. His grip held her firmly in place behind him. Turning in her arms, he'd then looked down into her face, her hardened nipples grazing his lower ribs. "What, you're leaving me? Already?"

Hermione had felt entirely confused. "But, you told me to."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"And since when do you listen to a single thing I ever say?"

Running her hands up and down his slippery, hairless chest, she'd answered, "When have I ever not?"

"Ha! I can think of many times, Miss Granger."

"Lady Black, if you please," she corrected him primly.

His grin was as rakish as what he had just done to her. "Oh, I know. Merlin, love. I don't think I ever imagined that being married to you and on the run together would be quite this much fun." He'd waggled his eyebrows mischievously before leaning over to kiss her forehead. "Thank you."

Hermione hadn't known what to say. She'd just gazed up at him, waiting for—

"But, I don't want you getting cold," he'd added, noting the goosebumps rising on her flesh now that the spray of warm water had ceased. "Go."

"Really?"

"Mmm. Until later." Raising her hand to his mouth, Sirius had first kissed the back like a gentleman, and then the palm like a scoundrel.

Hermione had dried herself quickly with a towel, knowing he was watching her every move, and then had let him be, picking up her clothes and dressing as she went downstairs. Sirius had stayed above, perhaps to give her a bit of space — perhaps to take another sex-induced nap — leaving her alone and all fired up to find some foolproof way to make him hers.

Now, however, glancing back through her notes at the long list of famous couples, Hermione sighed dejectedly.

She knew she had a classic problem: she'd fallen in love with a man who was, well, 'complicated' was just the beginning of it. But a classic problem, she felt, could and should be solved with a classic answer: hence, her need for the classics. The great romances of literature.

Because, surely, somewhere in that litany of famous lovers down through the ages — many of whose stories she had read time and again and more than half-memorised — there must be some handy precedent for what she now faced. A story of a girl falling in love with a boy and then concocting the perfect plan to have him feel the same way about her.

It should have taken no time at all.

But, after more than an hour of concentrated work, she feared she'd been wrong.

This was a total goose chase.

Not a single time, in all the stories she had cherished, had the heroine fallen in love first, as Hermione had done with Sirius.

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy.

Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth.

Scarlett and Rhett.

Anne and Gilbert.

Emma and Mr Knightley.

All those couples she had read about and loved all her life… and it was always the man who fell in love first. Always.

Hermione had found a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice on a bookshelf near the fire, not that she needed it to remember any of the story's details. Darcy had fallen for Lizzie, and it had taken her ages to return the sentiment, especially after his cringe-worthy first proposal: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

And Darcy had then gone on to tell his lady love that he liked her against his will, his reason, and his character. Disaster.

Then there was Wentworth's love-letter from Persuasion, which Hermione had always thought was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever read. But it, too, wasn't much of a guide: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are lost forever. Dare not say that man forgets earlier than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant."

Loved none but her? Hardly. Sirius Black had been loving witches before Hermione had even been born.

Also, since they lived together, it was highly doubtful he'd leave a declaration of love lying around, hoping she might spy it and tell him that she felt the same.

Early on in making her list of potential inspirations, Hermione had decided to avoid the quagmire of Heathcliff and Cathy, but her Shakespearean hopes had proved a dead-end, too. Romeo had made the first move with Juliet at the Capulets' ball, and while Benedict and Beatrice had been duped by their friends into believing they each were in love with the other, it was Benedict, technically, who confessed his feelings first.

The American epics weren't any better. Jay Gatsby had been obsessed with Daisy to the point of lunacy, and as for Scarlett and Rhett, that hadn't exactly ended well, now had it? "No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you! You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Her mouth twisted to one side. Replace 'kiss' with another four-letter word and she could certainly imagine Sirius saying something similar, perhaps even saying it to her, given her perpetual virginity.

But Rhett had fallen for Scarlett the first time they'd met at Twelve Oaks. Sirius had not fallen in love with Hermione the first time he had seen her. Not even if she only started counting more recently, after his return from the Veil.

Without her books in front of her, she couldn't exactly remember what George Emerson had said to Lucy Honeychurch, or how John Thornton had proposed to Margaret Hale, but she knew that, in both cases, it was the men who had declared their love first.

That always seemed to be the way. It was some cardinal rule that she'd never noticed until now.

Hermione rolled her eyes at herself. What a ruin. Here she'd thought that the great romances could help her devise a sure-fire way of making Sirius fall in love with her. But, after making notes for the better part of an hour, there was not a single, credible example of what she needed.

The only other classic she'd been able to find on the cottage's bookshelves was Jane Eyre.

Sirius as Mr Rochester?

The Byronic temperament was certainly bang on. Both men were aristocratic and surly, exuding a dark, unpredictable, and even dangerous aura, cursing at fate, and glowering at any obstacles in their way. They were both men controlled by their emotions, but also capable of great feeling. And the age gap between herself and Sirius was nearly the same as Jane and the master of Thornfield Hall.

However, there were also some notable problems in drawing any further parallels, first and foremost being that Sirius wasn't already married and, running a close second, that said wife wasn't a madwoman hidden away up in the attic.

Buckbeak had been kept in the attic at Grimmauld Place, but Hermione was rather inclined to believe that she didn't have to compete with a hippogriff for Sirius' affections. She hoped so, at any rate.

But then, as she flipped through the pages of the old hardback Brontë novel, she felt a stab of disappointment yet again. Her shoulders drooped visibly as the name 'Blanche Ingram' flitted across the page.

How could she have forgotten?

Rochester had tried to make Jane jealous with another woman. A few pages later, Hermione found their love scene and there were the words, bold as brass: "In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman — your bride…. Your bride stands between us."

Arrrgh!

Pushing the copy of Jane Eyre to one side, Hermione burrowed her face in her hands. "I'm doomed," she groaned.

"What's that?" Sirius stood in the doorway. "Ah, I see we're back to the books."

"Oh, it's nothing. Just… abject frustration."

"On my watch? You wound me. Didn't I just take care of you upstairs?"

"Sirius!"

"Ah, now, I can recognise scholarly angst at fifty paces."

"Says the wizard who was top of his class at Hogwarts," pointed out Hermione. "Well, you and James."

Grinning, he leaned against the wooden doorframe. "Guilty as charged. But, that's also how I know that no research is worth that much aggravation."

She peered up at him, intrigued in how he could be both swaggering and sophisticated in the same moment.

"Look, love, you've gotten all pale and fraught. I liked it better when you were all flushed and pink… from the shower, you know. And the orgasm."

As she blushed, he finally teased a smile out of her.

"If you need an answer, it'll come, but not with so much torment running alongside it. Life's too short."

"Tell that to the Western Canon," she sighed.

His eyebrows drew together as he tilted his head. "The what?"

"Never mind. Just a silly list of sources I was consulting."

"But not about Umbridge."

"No. Something else. But," she said, forcing an even brighter smile across her face, "nothing really important." Except everything I thought I knew about love and romance and sorting any of this mess out in my head. Good Godric.

"Seriously, though," he pressed. "Why the far-off pondering?"

Pushing back from the desk, Hermione stood up and stretched. "It's nothing. Truly. I was just thinking."

"And that's never dangerous, of course. Not with you," he said knowingly. "Is the book any good?"

"What book?"

"That book," he said, pointing to Jane Eyre.

"It's a classic," she said, almost wistfully.

"Hmm. Good to know."

"Fancy a game before dinner?"

Sirius' face lit up. "I thought you'd never ask."

"All right, you evil witch," he grumbled, coming back to the table with a whisky in each hand and glowering at her obvious glee. "Ask away."

Hermione could have crowed with pleasure. Three games played and two wins for her. Still enjoying the smugness of a well-earned victory in the rubber match, her eyes fell on Sirius' left hand as he set her drink in front of her. She took a quick sip of the amber-gold liquid, and then girded her loins.

She had to know.

"What is it, kitten? Cat got your tongue?"

There must have been something in her face, because suddenly his own playfulness fell away.

"Um… Ron brought this up before, and he was a total jerk about it. That's not what I mean, I promise. I'm honestly curious. Why did you never get married?"

The silence stretched out interminably. Sirius stared at the table. But Hermione desperately needed to hear his answer. It felt like a key, somehow, to unlocking a part of him she had never seen but needed to know.

When he finally did speak, his voice was velvety-soft; she hung on every word.

"I wasn't lying in what I said then, that day at Grimmauld. It's difficult to become serious about anyone when you're shut away in a wizarding prison at all of twenty-two. And then the Veil…" His eyes clouded over briefly. "But before then? Honestly, love, why would I have bothered? I was too young."

"You never had something deeper with anyone?" she pressed. "Not ever?"

Sirius thought a while longer with his eyes firmly locked on the floor, raising them only to then stare at his whisky tumbler. His thumb and middle finger moved up and down the bevelled glass. Hermione had no idea how many memories he must have been sifting through, but she knew there were a lot.

There had been any number of women in his life.

Just how many witches have you been with, she thought.

"I'm not answering that."

"Oh!" Her hands flew up to her mouth. "I didn't know I'd said that out loud! I'm so sorry. That was terribly insensitive of me."

He grunted.

"How many people have you been with?"

"Hermione!"

His bark of outrage sounded so wonderfully shocked, it made her grin. After a moment, her honest amusement pulled a half-smirk from him, as well. The atmosphere in the room lightened instantly.

"Which question do you want me to answer?"

"The one about a serious relationship."

He took a breath and shrugged, his finger slipping down from the glass to trace random shapes on the wooden table-top. "I suppose Marlene and I were headed down that route. Possibly. Maybe. Marlene McKinnon, you know. From the Order. The first one."

Hermione nodded quickly. She knew all about Marlene McKinnon, could picture the smiling, buxom young witch straight away. It had been one of the names haunting her since the bike-ride to the cottage, when she had tried to guess the identities of Sirius' first partners in bed.

"Harry pointed her out to me in the photo you gave him. She was… very pretty."

Sirius' bottom lip jutted outwards. "We'd been friendly at Hogwarts. Then, when things got so serious for Prongs and Lily at last, Marlene and I got the odd comment or two about how we would be next. News to us, to be honest. But, then, the war broke out and we never had to go further down that road. Maybe, if the war had never happened, if we'd had to do it for some unavoidable reason, we would have done… and then made each other miserable for the rest of our lives."

Hermione hadn't expected that final note of cynicism. "You weren't in l—"

"No." Sirius didn't even let her finish the word. "No, I wasn't. We weren't. She and I had fun, but it wasn't love. We were just kids."

"Weren't you the same age as James and Lily?"

"Technically, yes, but in how we felt? How we acted?" He snorted. "Hardly. Marlene was a brilliant witch and a wonderful girl. If she'd had time, I've no doubt she would've become an amazing woman. But she died. She was only, what, twenty? She was…" His face paled slightly. "Fuck me, she was your age."

Hermione swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "I hadn't realised."

"Neither had I."

"Do you miss her?"

Sirius weighed that possibility. "When I think of her, it's very fondly, but it… she…"

"What?"

His eyes burned into hers. "She wasn't mine to mourn," he said softly. "Do you understand what I mean? I know she'd've said the same about me. We got on and we had a lot of laughs, but we also knew the times we had together, they weren't—" He broke off, his body radiating discomfort. "We weren't about to fool ourselves pretending otherwise. Not with everything else happening around us. And then she was gone."

Something cold slid down Hermione's spine. Were they still talking about Marlene?

"I'm sorry."

Sirius smiled, but it never quite reached his eyes. "Thank you."

Suddenly, there were too many thoughts. Things flashed through Hermione's mind so quickly, she could only catch snatches of each one, but they all left her shaken. Why would this time with her be any different than what he'd lived through before? They were living in a bubble now, here in the Highlands, but that couldn't last, and the threats to both of them weren't going anywhere. Was she brave enough to risk telling him, despite all of that? But if she didn't fight for what she knew was something so good and special to her, how could she ever forgive herself?

Sirius suddenly stood, pushing his chair back from the table with a loud screech. "Come on, love, get your glad rags on."

"What do you mean?"

"Fancy dinner down at the inn? I think we could do with a change of scene."

Hermione's mouth opened and closed without her saying anything. Finally, she spluttered, "B—but, I still have another question to ask. And so do you."

"Ask while I'm having a pint, and I'll do the same. Come on, 'Mione," he urged, when he saw her indecision. "We haven't been out for days. And notwithstanding cat-obsessed maniacal Death Eaters trying to kill us, it is still our honeymoon. I want to show off my bride."

She stared at him for a moment longer, and then gave in. "Oh, all right. If we get soaked on the way, so be it."

He shook his head. "Rain's mostly let up now."

"When did that happen?"

"When we were up in the shower. Funny how neither of us noticed, don't you think?"

The wink he gave her as she blushed again was definitely the Sirius she had come to know and love, not the haunted, bitter man who had suddenly been across from her at the table.

"Besides, if we get too wet, I can show you a wandless drying spell."

"Sirius! Too much magic is making me nervous!"

"Relax," he said, closing the door behind them as they stepped outside. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Quotes were taken from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

I'm sure there are some romantic classics where the girl realises she's in love first and then wins the boy, but Hermione honestly couldn't think of any while in hiding and without access to a proper library. There was a brief debate before posting about Romancing Mr Bridgerton as a popular contender, but it was only published in 2015, whereas this story is set in the summer of 2000.