The Truth of Us
Hermione x Sirius | @hp-yuletide-bliss Day 16: I gave you my heart | WC 2103 | Rating: M
A sob strangled Hermione’s throat as she shut herself in her room and pressed her back up against the surface. Each breath was a struggle, the inhales loud and desperate for reassurance, the exhales strained. She shoved the heels of each hand into her eyes and willed the tears to stay back. They always made her feel weak and juvenile, affirmations of her stupidity for caring so much about a man who would never see her as nothing more than a girl not even worth consideration.
Nevermind that she was approaching her 30s and knew exactly what and who she wanted in her life.
“Kitten, please, just talk to me.”
Sirius’ voice was muffled from beyond the door. His door, because this was Grimmauld Place and she had overstayed her welcome between flats like she was. She needed to hurry up her search and get out.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Kitten”, “love”, “little girl”—they were all variations of the way he saw her. At one point, they’d seemed signs of his affection. She leaned into them and imagined they meant something…more.
How stupid she’d been.
“Hermione. Can you open the door? I’m pretty sure this is all a misunderstanding.”
Her stomach roiled and heat flowed into her chest. A misunderstanding, was it? Turning swiftly, she yanked open the door and glared up into the dark eyes of Sirius Black.
“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing unclear about what I just saw, Sirius.”
She’d walked out of the Floo into the drawing room, her hand frozen in the motion of brushing off soot as she scrambled to make sense of the scene in front of her. Sirius leaning against her favorite armchair, where she often curled up at night reading, and a woman standing far too close to him with her hand resting on his chest and a coy smile on her face, the twinkling red and green lights of the Christmas tree playing in patterns across their forms.
The loud thunk of her bag hitting the floor alerted them to her presence, Sirius’ head snapping up and eyes focusing on her. The woman merely looked over with a frown, one perfect eyebrow raised in confusion.
“Kitten, I–”
Whatever he’d been about to say was lost as she pushed past him and the shite Christmas tree, and up the stairs.
Now he looked at her, one hand buried in his hair at the nape of his neck, the other leaning against the doorframe as if to trap her in. His mouth opened, then closed without saying anything.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Look, it’s none of my business, anyway. You’re free to do whatever with whomever you wish.”
Nevermind the fact that he’d certainly lead her to believe otherwise in the recent weeks. Lingering looks, a touch here and there. She let him borrow her books!
Her attempt to close the door was met with the loud smack of his palm against the surface.
“It’s not what you think it is. Don’t jump to conclusions.” His eyes were wide, almost desperate. But no, that couldn’t be right, could it? She was just seeing what she wanted to see.
Hearing him say that to her, like Hermione had a habit of misunderstanding what she saw with her very own eyes, pissed her off beyond measure. Where did he get off telling her what to think?
His hand slid across the door and curled around the edge, knuckles whitened with how hard he gripped it. It was like he meant to force her into believing his version of events and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Her traitorous heart ratcheted up in beat as he leaned further into her space. It was then that she flicked her eyes up and noticed the mistletoe he’d affixed there with a wink just yesterday.
She took one step back.
He stepped forward.
She could give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him to explain. A part of her loudly demanded this.
The other part? It had her tightening her hold on her wand and shifting her weight to one side. He followed, like the observant wizard he was, and she pivoted immediately to the opposite foot and made a dash for the gaping hole he’d left. If she could just make it out the door and down to the Floo, she could disappear and take the time she needed to come up with a plan of action.
“Oh, no, you don’t!”
Faster than she could believe him capable, he flung an arm out and caught her around the waist. He tossed her back onto her bed in the next movement.
“Expelliarmus!”
Just like that, he had her wand.
“Sirius! You can’t just trap me in here!”
“Watch me,” he growled, stalking forward and waving both wands in his hand to slam her door shut with an ominous click. Rather than pin her to the bed like in one of her many fantasies, he pulled out her desk chair, spun it around, and straddled it with arms folded over the back as he glared at her. “Gina is an estate agent.”
Even though Hermione’s brain begged her to shut up and let the man speak, she couldn’t help herself. “She must be real successful if she touches all her clients like that.”
She sounded petty and jealous and exactly the type of witch she’d never wanted to be. There was a time, when she was younger and thought herself mad about Ron, that she’d indulged in those kinds of feelings. Even now, without her wand, she itched to sic her birds on him and watch as they attacked his salt-and-pepper hair. It would serve him right to show up at the Burrow Christmas Day with peck marks all over his face.
Still, that had been her past, and she’d thought herself beyond such acts. Looking at their predicament now, Hermione was forced to accept that maybe she hadn’t changed so much as she hadn’t felt this strongly about someone else in far too long a time.
Sirius sighed in exasperation, hand tugging again at his bun. “Yeah, she is touchy, but I’ve made it clear I’m not interested in her like that and that I never will be. If you had stayed downstairs just a bit longer, you would’ve seen me push her away.”
She inched up the mattress to press herself back into the cushions seeking some sort of consolation. She bit her lip as she looked at him, taking in the way he stared directly at her with those eyes that always seemed to strip her to the core.
In truth, he’d been really, really good to her these past few months. He always had been, even before she came asking for help. He opened his home to her without any deadline mentioned, just his firm reassurance that Hermione was welcome to stay as long as needed. He’d even gone so far as to suggest she move in permanently since he had plenty of space and could use the company. At the time, she’d waved off the suggestion as the obligatory offer it likely was. She’d assured him she’d be out of his hair as soon as she could find a suitable place.
As the weeks passed and they spent more and more time together, her search had slowed to a crawl. What was the rush, anyway? She didn’t want to hastily pick a place that didn’t fulfill every single one of her needs and Sirius was the perfect housemate. She’d intended to spend the holiday with him and think about relocating in the new year.
Estate agent?
Shame expanded, branching out through her limbs and crawling to the surface of her skin.
“If you wanted me to hurry up and get out, you could have just referred me directly to the witch.”
His scowl deepened and he thrust himself up from the chair to finally prowl forward onto the edge of the bed.
“When will you stop thinking the worst of me?”
The springs creaked underneath his weight as he crawled towards her. It might have been amusing in any other scenario–shouldn’t magic make such things, such Muggle-like inconveniences, nonexistent?
So wrapped up in the random thought was she, that, by the time Sirius bracketed her between his arms, it was too late to dart away. Scents of bergamot and tobacco engulfed her and she breathed in deep.
“Sirius…” The name came out as a quiet plea.
“Yes, I reached out to her on your behalf,” Hermione’s eyes widened, but he continued, “and for mine, as well.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I wanted to see what options were even available before talking with you, but I see now that I had it all backwards. I should have consulted you first, then gone with someone else, anyone else.”
What was he trying to say? Was he dressing up the entire act of getting her out of Grimmauld Place?
“I assure you, Sirius, I can stay with Luna, or with the twins. There’s no need for you to go through all the effort–”
She trailed off when he brought his face close, his forehead pressing against her own and each puff of air a kiss of air against her lips.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Nothing he said made any sense, but she could feel the heat of his body as it hovered above hers and wanted to pull him flush against her like doing so would erase her doubts. The only other sound in the room was the ticking of her desk clock.
“What was Gina here for, Sirius?” Maybe saying the witch’s name would help clear her head.
She flinched in surprise at the hand that cupped her jaw and slightly tilted her face closer to him.
“I asked her to look for a smaller place where you and I might both live together.” The hand on her cheek slid down to rest palm-side down against the center of her chest. “I’ve felt more for you than any man my age should for far longer than was appropriate, and you being here has only affirmed everything I already knew to be true.”
Hermione couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. She could barely take deep enough breaths to keep up with the galloping of her heart and mind.
“What truth is that?”
The smile that stretched across his face made her ache in want, the lines at the corners of his mouth filling in deeply. It wasn’t difficult for Hermione to imagine the many years of laughter that had formed those creases and informed the devastating man that he was.
“That I gave my heart to you and intend for you to keep it. I was going to tell you tonight.”
Christmas Eve. He remembered her family tradition of opening one gift a night early.
She pinched herself hard, then yelped as pain bloomed across her arm.
Sirius threw his head back and laughed loudly, before dropping his forehead back down to hers. “This isn’t a dream, kitten.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Now that you’ve heard my explanation, what’s yours?” His eyes searched hers for an answer.
A myriad of thoughts crowded to the front, but one in particular shoved its way into the light.
“You want me?” Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.
A twinkle appeared in his eyes, the start of another smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I want you so bad.”
“But you already have me.” The words had barely left her lips before he met them in a kiss, his eager warmth enveloping her in undiluted, overwhelming Sirius Black. He lowered himself to lie against her, pressing down with his delicious weight and giving her the undeniable proof of his want hard against her thigh.
By the time they broke for air, he’d worked her into a panting mess, hands clenched so tight into the fabric of his Henley she was surprised she hadn’t torn straight through it.
“I’ll find a different agent.”
“I didn’t give a fuck about the estate agent, Sirius.”
And she didn’t. Not anymore. Gina might as well be a footnote to the love story of Hermione Granger and Sirius Black. Dramatics and misunderstandings aside, Hermione now held zero doubts about the future that lay before them. They had their work cut out for them, talks to be had and truths to be brought to light.
Right this second, though?
She arched her hips and grinned at the muffled groan he made into the crook of her neck.
Cross-posted on Tumblr and AO3.
I have WritexAboutxMe to thank for my mind being stuck on this duo ever since I read Yuletide Beginnings earlier this week. Now all I can think about are tattoos, a salt-and-pepper man bun, and a wizard who knows exactly what he wants for Christmas this year. If that strikes your fancy, too, then go and read her work this instant!
This story actually started with a far worse premise of Hermione stumbling across Sirius getting a blowjob. It didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t really write any sort of recovery from that within my self-imposed limits on length, so I ended up softening the act and turning it all into something else entirely.
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