Thunder and Lightning

Someone comes thundering down the stairs and Hermione reluctantly pulls away from Sirius, her fingers curling, pressing trails into his sides as she moves away. He feels those trails, tingling deep in his skin.

"Ah," he says, pointing at the burn laid into her collar, "you'd better keep that a secret."

"I will," she whispers, the footsteps getting closer and closer, "how do I get it to go away?"

"It'll go away," Sirius says, and abruptly stops speaking further as Arthur enters.

"What will go away?" he asks, tying the belt of his robe into a tight knot.

Hermione's looking at the floor, pulling the collar of her shirt up, feigning cold, but the only thing underneath her shirt is the evidence of heat.

"Her stress over Harry's hearing," Sirius pipes up, and coughs into his palm, as if it were a side-effect of lying, "it'll be over today, won't it?"

"Yes! Yes, it will." Arthur rubs his eyes and then looks to Hermione, who smiles weakly.

"I'm going to shower," she says, a little too quickly and a little too loud. She sweeps past Arthur and out of the room.

"She seems worried," Arthur says, moving towards the kettle and finding Hermione's discarded cup, the water now lukewarm. He looks at it, confused, and says, "Is this yours?"

Sirius stares for a second and then shakes himself. "No, it isn't."

Sirius looks to the doorway and blinks, pressing his palms to those trails Hermione left on his sides.

***

Hermione disappears into the bathroom and washes away her sins, she runs the water hot and stands in steam until she thinks everyone else is awake.

She slips on clothes and walks downstairs in time to see Harry creep into the kitchen. She stands back and lets him go, because when it comes down to it, it's always been about him.

She hears Sirius, Lupin, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley telling Harry what to say at the trial, and she hears that quiver in Sirius' voice. She stops breathing when she realizes that quiver isn't for her, that there are more things at stake then kisses and lust.

She thinks of every moment ever spent with Harry, every second he's ever spent in the line of harm for her. She pushes the kitchen door open harshly and sees Mrs. Weasley trying to comb Harry's hair, and he looks to her and looks so lost.

She walks forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders and whispers to him, "It'll be okay."

He doesn't look so sure, and she watches helplessly as Mr. Weasley pulls him out of the room and out of the house.

Tonks hobbles out of the room tiredly, and Hermione stands blinking at the floor.

"The law is on his side, Hermione," she hears Lupin say behind her, and it sounds like the least comforting thing she has ever heard.

"I know," she answers, distractedly.

***
Hermione sits on the couch and stares at the pages of a book, really thinking about Harry's lost look and all of the things she's been neglecting, everything she's been ignoring because all she can think about is Sirius.

She never thought she would be that girl, the one with tunnel-vision, the one who loses all of her sense over someone.

"What are you reading?"

She looks up and there he is, and she rises immediately in front of him as if under a spell.

She never thought she would be that girl, but she is.

"Nothing." She closes the book and holds it lightly in her right hand, and she stares into his eyes, waiting for him to explain everything to her, waiting for some sort of jumbled logic that she could content herself with when it comes to him.

He says nothing, puts his hand over hers and she lets the book fall to the ground. He leans down and she leans up, her left hand gripping his shirt for leverage. They kiss for a moment but he pulls away from her, burying his face in her neck, and he mutters into her shoulder, "This is inconceivably wrong."

She doesn't say anything because she knows that by all logical accounts, he is right. She wants to ask him, "Why didn't you think of that before?", but she's wrapped around him and she knows he's never been one for logic, never been one for anything but impulse and feeling. She's reaching down inside of herself for that sensible Hermione, the one who would scream at her for what she has been doing with Sirius, the one who would have pulled her from the direction in which she has been so inexorably moving.

She cannot find her, cannot find the sense and logic that has carried her so smoothly through life before this. So easy to divide things up into right or wrong, so very easy. She can't imagine anything more difficult than what she is doing with Sirius, anything so outside of black and white or right and wrong.

She pulls out of his grasp and walks away, she doesn't know what else to do and she can't stand to be near something so uncertain.

***

Hermione sits down at the kitchen table later, head aching. Lupin is sitting across from her with his nose in a book, and they sit in silence for a moment, but she's expecting it when he says, "What's wrong, Hermione? You're quiet."

She pauses and says, "I have a problem I can't figure out."

She doesn't say anything else, and he knows she doesn't really want to tell him anything else.

He lowers his book and smiles reassuringly at her, and she can see he's telling her, don't worry, you'll figure this out, you figure everything out.

She looks back, panicked, and beneath every change in her face and her eyes she is telling him, No, I won't, not this.