FicWad

Sirius remained with her, even as the sky outside grew dark. He climbed into the bed, and had his arm wrapped around her, and Hermione snuggled into him as their conversation slowly melted into trivial nonsense.

It was much later on, after hours of laughing at James' face when he was suspended upside down, to chatting aimlessly about nothing important, that Sirius turned to her, his face solemn.

She held her breath.

“Why did you jump in front of the spell?”

It was something that had been eating away at him ever since it had happened. The guilt had pained him, a nagging feeling that threatened to choke him. Although he hadn’t known her long, Sirius didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to her. Especially if he was the one responsible. It might’ve been her eyes, the way they seemed to understand the soul they looked into, or her laugh, that never failed to make him smile, but Sirius Black knew that he would go out of his mind if anything happened to Hermione Granger.

“I thought he was someone else,” Hermione said faintly. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

Sirius licked his lips and tilted his head further down to watch her as he asked gently, “Someone else?”

She turned her head away from him. There was indecision bubbling inside of her. She’d spoken of Harry. Hell, she’d even spoken of Ron, and those two boys meant more to her- mean more to her, than anything else in the entire universe, in the entire fabric of time. If she could talk about them, why was her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth? Why was her mind not working?

Why was she finding it so hard to talk about Draco Malfoy?

Hermione dragged her eyes up to Sirius. “I never told you how I got here,” she said. “Did I?”

"No," he replied. "You didn't."

Hermione breathed in shakily. The whiteness of the Hospital Wing faded away, trickling into the ruin of stone and the pungent stench of death was heavy in the air.

She remembered running away, after seeing the body of the boy she had loved more than herself. She remembered him finding her, saying her name, mouthing something she couldn’t quite catch, before he was falling and falling and falling and-

“Hermione.”

Sirius wrenched her out of her mind. Hermione swallowed, willing her strength to return. She felt weak, but she had to say it. She had avoided it for so long, too long.

“Harry died.”

Those two words echoed through the room, long after she had said them. It was hard enough already- she couldn’t do this! - and yet, she hadn’t even started.

“I ran away. I knew we’d lost and I couldn’t stop falling apart and Ron was already gone and I ran to the only place I could think of. The Room of Requirement. Only I wasn’t the first person there…”

(“Hello Granger.”)

“He was there. Hiding, for his life, from his life… I have no idea…”

Sirius was watching her carefully. “Who was? Who was there, Hermione?”

She swallowed. The words froze her brain and as soon as they touched the air, she grappled in desperation to take them back.

“Draco Malfoy.”



(“Draco.”

“Don’t do that Granger.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t speak to me like we’re friends. You know we’re not.”

“Draco-”

“We are on different sides of the war, Granger! If we were two different people, then we would be killing one another!”

“But we’re not. We’re not two different people. We’re still the same people, just older-”

“No, we’re not! We’re not-”

….

“How could you?”

“No! No! Please, Granger! I didn’t know, I was already here! I didn’t know they wanted you, please!”

“I don’t understand… If you didn’t, then why-?”

“I-”

“Draco?”

“I-I lov-”

“I’m sorry, Hermione.” )

She was crying now, and Hermione didn’t even realise that she was gripping the front of Sirius’ shirt with a devastation she didn't know she possessed. "He saved me," she said finally. "I was the last key member of the Order, and they were looking for me. He sent me back here when they found us." The tears made her cheeks feel sore. The story made her heart feel like it was being cracked open and her eyes stung. "The last thing I saw in my time was Draco Malfoy's body hitting the floor because they killed him. They killed him because he let me live."

Sirius' hand cupped her fist and his knuckles were white. She looked up at him, and noticed that he looked much older than ever before. He looked like the Sirius she knew. "You didn't step in front of my spell to save Lucius, did you?" He asked quietly, though it was more of a statement. "You stepped in front of it to save Draco."

Hermione merely looked at him, and before she was given time to reply, the doors to the Hospital Wing burst open and James exploded into the room.

He seemed tense, but despite his obvious worry, he was trying to appear aloof.

It wasn't working.

"Sirius," he said. His voice was as grave as his face.

Sirius stared at him for a long time before he turned to look to Hermione. Their faces were so close again, and she wondered idly what would happen if they got any closer.

"Did you mean it?" Sirius asked in a coarse voice, quiet enough so that James couldn't hear.

Hermione looked startled. "Mean what?"

"When you said I was a good man..." He seemed almost ashamed to have to ask. His eyes wavered, like he wanted to cast them away, but tenacity told him not to. She pushed herself up, and off the bed a little bit, to kiss his cheek.

Lingering there, Hermione whispered, "I meant every word."

Sirius' face softened, and he seemed rather breathless as she pulled away.

He stared at her, and something flickered across his face, a longing for something, but he schooled his features quickly, and the expression was nothing more than a fleeting set of muscles that decided to tense at the same time.

He disentangled himself from her and climbed out of the bed.

Hermione looked at James. "What's wrong? Has something happened?"

He regarded her with wide eyes, not replying for a second and then shook himself, as though he was taken aback by her question. "No," James said. His smile was forced. His face was pallid. She saw right through his facade. He was as bad a liar as Harry. "It's just Remus' aunt has taken horribly sick. He's not too good at the moment either. And Sirius always seems to know how best to cheer him up." He paused, before adding, "And how best to annoy him, but it's really the first one I need him for at present."

It was a believable lie, and Hermione didn't need to wonder how no one had discovered where the four boys really got off to.

"I see," she said. "Please do send my best regards."

"Of course," James smiled tightly.

Hermione looked at Sirius then, and she felt anxiety streak through her. She'd met Moony, once upon a time, long ago and he was dangerous.

Sirius leaned down to hug her. She held onto his arms, and a part of her didn't want to let him go.

"Stay asleep tonight, yeah?" Sirius said, as he retracted himself, but his arm lingered on her waist. He dropped down, pressing his lips to her forehead and keeping them there. Hermione's fingers enclosed his wrist. He added judiciously, “Please don’t go outside tonight. It’s cold. Don’t want you catching hypothermia, which is likely in your current state.” An unamused laugh followed this.

The words ‘Be Safe, Please’ died on her lips.

“In my current state?” Hermione said instead, but though the words were meant to be arched, they fell flat.

The words ‘I need you to be safe’ died on his lips.

“Yes, bedridden and delusional and all that,” Sirius replied instead, tapping her chin. The joke was short-lived and it did nothing to quench the growing tempest of unease inside of them both.

And all too soon, he was walking away, shooting her that grin that dripped with youth and showed that he didn’t have a care in the world.

It was that grin that frightened her most of all. She’d seen that grin and whoever wore it often ended up dead.

He looked back once and the doors shut with a resounding bang. Hermione was alone.



oOoOoOo



She couldn't sleep. It had been two hours since they had left, and Hermione could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, images of a wolf and a dog snarling and fighting and tearing each other to shreds flashed before her, invading the darkening recluse of sleep.

She sat up suddenly. Worry nibbled at her subconscious, and Hermione associated it with the feeling of war, of having someone you love walk out of the door and wondering idly whether they would live to walk back through it.

The moonlight pooled through the high windows, and onto the infirmary floor.

There was no choice in the matter. She could not lay here and do nothing.

Hermione threw back her covers and resolutely swung her legs out of bed. As soon as she stood up, her vision faltered and everything around her spun. She closed her eyes, gripping the bedside table.

Eventually, she felt her head return to normal, and she grabbed for her coat, which was hanging over the back of a nearby chair, shoving her arms through it and fastening it up to her chin. She slipped on her shoes.

Hermione quickly but cautiously glanced at the nurse’s office, but there was no sign of life behind the closed door. She crept to the exit, and experimentally pushed the door open. It didn’t creak. She almost sighed in relief.

Peering into the shadows of the corridor, she darted out. The castle was draughty, and Hermione moved with haste; her head was down and she stopped for nothing.

She was stood in front of the main entrance in no time. They weren’t even locked, and she slipped outside, into the beckoning clutches of the night.

The cold clawed at her bare legs, and instantly the wind seemed to want to blow her over. The sky was an impossible black, billowing down into the forest in tendrils and obscuring the grounds. The moon was high and full, riding the clouds like a ghostly galleon.

Hermione stepped forwards once. Twice. Even through her brogues, she could feel the wetness of the grass.

Something howled.

Suddenly, she didn’t think this was such a good idea.

She continued moving, despite not really knowing where she was headed. The Whomping Willow’s branches reached for the sky, as if trying to pierce the moon, like it was a balloon, and free those from the curse it inflicted. Hermione folded her arms. Her wand was gripped incredibly tightly in her hand, and her eyes flitted to everything that moved.

“Better be careful, darling.”

Hermione jumped, a scream threatened to tear from her throat and she spun around.

He looked scruffy and unkempt, his hair much longer than usual, though that might've just been because he hadn't brushed it. His face was dirty, and his clothes, which had looked so clean when she had last seen him, were ripped and ragged.

In a voice just as low and quiet as the one he used before, Sirius murmured, "Don't know what monsters might roam in the dark."

Hermione had a feeling she did.

He moved closer to her, and his seemingly casual stance was rigid. Sirius’ eyes monitored their surroundings. He eventually looked at her. “I thought I told you not to come outside tonight.”

“No, you didn’t,” Hermione argued. “You said ‘please don’t go outside.’ You didn’t explicitly tell me not to do anything.”

“Your current state won’t benefit from this.”

“Your current state will deteriorate rapidly in a minute if you continue,” she warned.

Sirius let a fleeting grin steal across his face. But it was brief.

His face fell abruptly, and Hermione knew what it was without having to turn around. There was a scuffle, the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing and she felt her heart leap to her throat, as though it was trying to escape out of her mouth. Warning bells rang in her head and they were so loud, she thought they might deafen her.

"Hermione," Sirius began. There was a low yet forceful caution to his voice. He held a hand out slowly, and his eyes never moved off of the thing behind her. "I'm going to tell you something and you have to promise not to scream, okay? Don't say anything, just nod."

His eyes glanced at her. She nodded. They immediately flicked back to their original target.

"That wasn't the wind howling."

And even though she knew, Hermione still felt her blood run cold in her veins. Her eyes were glued on Sirius, and she felt tears but it was too cold and her face was too chapped and dry to let them fall.

She was struck with the familiar notion that something very bad could happen here, and she wanted to run away, but Hermione knew she had to stay motionless.

Sirius swallowed. The veins in his neck were exposed, and she focused on the rapid throbbing of his pulse. "Hermione," he said, and his index finger beckoned her discreetly forward. "Move slowly, love. That's it. Slower! Slower... Come here."

She did so. She lifted her feet, one at a time, and placed them back on the damp ground as though she were acting out a slow motion piece. Her mind was fuzzy, and she couldn't think straight.

Her heart stopped when a branch snapped underneath her foot.

There was a growl behind her.

She felt sick, and yet something was pulling her to turn around. She had to see him, even though moving an inch could kill her.

She began turning around.

"HERMIONE-!"

In her peripheral vision, she saw the wolf launch into action, just as she was wrenched backwards by Sirius, who propelled himself forward in her place. They switched rapidly, and the power behind his pull left her on the floor.

Hermione looked up quickly, just in time to see Sirius running forward. And then his hands morphed into paws, and black fur sprouted from his arms, which were shrinking in size and width. He jumped in the air, and the transition was so fleeting that she barely could distinguish the moment where he was a man, and where he was a dog. It seemed like there was no in between. He was one.

Padfoot bounded, and he was large and full and vicious-looking.

Hermione could only stare in muted horror as the dog barked, in a peculiarly human tone. It seemed to be pleading.

Bracing herself, she lifted her eyes to the wolf... And gasped.

The beast was rather beautiful, with voluminous fur and a smaller snout and a rounder face. Its eyes were bright amber, even brighter in the moonlight, and the wolf seemed almost majestic in its movement, and young and free.

And she couldn't help but compare him to the one she had met in her third year. It was terrible what years of solitude could do to both a man, and the monster inside of him.

The wolf lowered its haunches, which Hermione hadn't even noticed were raised. Its lips dropped from the snarl that that contorted its skin.

Hermione exhaled shakily.

Amber eyes snapped to her.

The wolf crouched into all-fours, dangerously preparing itself for something. She could see the murderous rage in its eyes, and even though this thing was a major threat to her life, even though it could tear her thrumming pulse from her neck with its teeth, Hermione still felt pity for it.

But the pity drained from her, as the wolf started prowling closer.

A growl parted its lips-

And then Padfoot jumped between them. The dog was warning, snarling and spitting, but the wolf didn't seem to be threatened. As Sirius tried to force it back, the wolf stood on its hind legs and swiped for the canine.

The dog was flicked aside, like nothing more than a common fly.

Hermione whimpered.

The wolf progressed again, and it seemed locked on her, adamantly set on reaching her. To do what, she had not a clue and she didn't fancy finding out.

But Sirius came out of nowhere again, from the left, jumping on the wolf's side and the two rolled down the banking. Howls and whines broke into the silent air, and Hermione felt horror build in her as she recognised them to be Padfoot's.

She wondered desperately where James and Peter were.

Seconds stole by, and still the agonised sounds of the fight assaulted the night. Flesh met flesh. Claws drew blood. Teeth snapped vehemently.

The wolf was a monster; unyielding and constant in its attacks, and Padfoot was becoming slow and weak.

The panicked thought fractured her terrified silence so profoundly, she did not even have time to think before Hermione was on her feet, scrambling forward and screaming, "STOP! STOP! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!"

The wolf did not stop. It did not even slow down. It was a killing machine and it thrived off death and destruction. The moon watched its creation with a kind of avid glee.

"STOP!" Hermione was desperate. She could feel her throat going hoarse. She had to stop it... She had to stop him. "REMUS! PLEASE!"

And the wolf stopped.