Thunder and Lightning

Harry is acquitted and there is such a collective feeling of relief it is almost as if the house itself sighs. Hermione sags against the doorway when she hears Harry and Mr. Weasley arriving back triumphantly downstairs, the tight hold of stress on her body uncoiling.

She goes downstairs and stands behind the kitchen door. She inches it open and looks in, and everyone is just so happy. Sirius is laughing with Remus and smiling that dazzling smile, and she sees his movements in slow-motion as he continues to laugh.

He looks so beautiful and carefree, and she can't take her eyes off of him. When she walks into the room and he turns his eyes upon her and holds his smile, she feels a tremor all the way down to her bones. She doesn't think this will ever go away, these feelings and this impossibility and this danger and everything. She looks to him darkly, and his smile fades and there is an intensity crackling in the air between them, something so tangible.

Remus sees the look pass between them, sees the look hold as tightly and securely as concrete.

Oh, he thinks, Oh!

There is a powerful kind of finality in this moment, and Hermione and Sirius both turn to Lupin and in their eyes they say, Please.

Remus has always been an accomplice to danger, and he is about to open his mouth to tell them so when they all hear Mrs. Weasley screaming Riddikulus! upstairs. Sirius and Hermione look to each other and immediately move to the door. Lupin beats them upstairs and they all see the boggart lying on the floor in the form of Harry's dead body.

At Remus' command, the boggart morphs into the moon morphs into nothing and Hermione's gaze screams to Sirius, but he's still looking to where the boggart was, where Harry had lain dead.

Hermione slips away, her back turned too quickly to see Sirius' eyes sliding over her body like gossamer.

She stays in her room and reads a book on transfiguration, wishing she could wave her wand and make everything bad change into nothingness, make trouble morph into something that never existed.

Sirius. Sun. Flowers. Happiness. Everyone alive, everyone alive, everyone alive forever...

She cuts off her train of thought and she discards the book. As the sun goes down she looks at a single candle burning on her bedside table. She stares at the flame and forces herself to not think.

She's sitting alone on the lip of her bed, the melted wax of the candle nearly swallowing the flame, when lightning strikes outside and thunder follows. She's so unaccustomed to it because it hasn't happened in so long that she jumps and screams in fright. The sound of her own voice is jagged and painful. She clutches her chest as if stabbed by her own scream, the thing almost a backhand to her Gryffindor bravery, a betrayal of who she used the think she was.

Sirius enters the room and she looks up sharply.

He says, "Are you alright?"

She can do nothing but nod and she watches as he quickly turns the lock. He moves towards her but does not touch her.

"Why did you go, earlier?" he asks, his voice low, and when she looks up into his eyes, they seem feverish, but maybe that's just the candlelight.

"I don't know," she says, "I didn't want to think about danger."

Sirius leans down and gets on his knees, at her level. His face is so close to hers and she can feel his hot breath on her lips when he lowers his voice even more to say, "Do you want to think about it now?"

"Yes," she answers, breathlessly.

The space between them is delicate and they are leaning on it with their stares, pushing on its seams until it pops and breaks and they are pressed together. He puts his lips to hers but doesn't open his mouth, and there, with her eyes closed, she feels like a regular girl kissing a regular boy, for a second. He pulls back an inch to just breathe. Hermione opens her eyes and his eyes are still closed.

She puts her hand to his face and he opens his eyes as it slips away and she lays back onto her bed. He follows her and hovers over her body, arms on either side of her head. Her legs are open beneath him, and he presses his hips into hers. She lets out a breath.

Sirius presses himself even closer to her and she pushes her hands in his hair and pulls him down to kiss him. Thunder rumbles outside but she's already shaking against his body, lust overcoming every fear she's ever had.

She pushes him over and straddles him, and he smooths his hands up her shirt to undo the buttons there. She presses down onto his crotch and he exhales loudly, and his hands still and then start moving again, but they are shaking on the buttons. He doesn't remember ever being this way, with anyone, and she feels amazing and he looks up and her hair is disheveled and she's flushed and he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone look as good as she does right now.

He's got the last button undone and she puts her hands up to slip the shirt off, and when the light hits all of her skin and the B burned into her collar, his heartbeat speeds up. Everything is happening so fast, and it's almost like it's just now that his heart has caught up to what is happening.

Hermione leans down and pushes his shirt up his chest, and it lies awkwardly in bunches beneath his arms. He is about to shift and move it when she leans even closer to him and opens her mouth on his nipple. He moans beneath her. She moves upwards and kisses his neck and his jaw, and he places his hands on her waist and switches their positions.

He pulls his shirt off and kisses her hard. He puts his hand in her pants and watches her clench her eyes shut and whimper.

"I can't..." Hermione moans, and he knows what she means so he starts to unbutton his own pants and she's pulling hers off. He pushes into her and she grasps his shoulders, and her thighs are clenched tight around his hips. He pauses inside of her and takes in a shaky breah, and her moan is enough to make him start moving. She bites her lip painfully to keep quiet, and he wishes they were in a house alone because he wants to hear her.

Sirius looks down at her, with her head turned to the side and the sweat on her brow and her collarbone, and he wants to say something like, I adore you, but cannot form the words, his heart is expanding in his chest and he feels so fucking good that when he opens his mouth he can do nothing but moan.

He can't say what he wants to say, can't make this moment the kind of perfect that is on silver screens, but being here this way is enough, it's more than enough, and they're their own kind of perfect.

Sirius is moving faster now, with less control, and Hermione has given up trying to keep herself quiet and is letting out sounds that are making Sirius crazy. She tenses up and says his name and comes, and he explodes and is left shaking over her body.

He gathers her into his arms and they lie together with only the sound of thunder crashing outside.