"Sed Non Satiata," Sirius/Hermione, R Title: Sed Non Satiata Author:green_amber Characters/Pairing: Sirius/Hermione Summary: Even the house is sweating tonight. Rating: Hard R Warning(s): Hermione is underage Originally Written: 3/06 Notes: This was a pinch hit for sioniann at hp_loveletters, so it may bear the marks of haste. ;) Beta by sionnain.
Even the house is sweating tonight. Hermione presses her palms to the damp wall of the unfamiliar room, feeling hemmed in, imprisoned. The room is too small for her restless mind. Her skin is too small for her body.
She's cast Aguamenti three times to refill the glass at her bedside, but it's not helping. It's all coming out through her pores. Her heavy curls stick to the back of her neck. She's been tossing in the slightly mildewed sheets for hours.
She tells herself she's thinking of Ron, just on the other side of the flaking plaster wall, or Viktor and the letter on the nightstand, but when she closes her eyes and lies very still and tries to conjure sleep by sheer force of will, she sees the wrong face, a forbidden face, and eyes like a storm about to break.
If she were back in her own room, her little girl's room with its white curtains and downy quilts and softly humming air conditioner, she'd know how to banish the unbidden thoughts. She'd seek comfort in the pages of a book, the sort of old tattered book you're supposed to give up when you get to be fifteen. Anne of Green Gables. Fire and Hemlock. Something like that.
This, though, is Grimmauld Place, where the curtains crumble to dust in your hands and the blankets are moth-eaten, and the books are called things like A Hundred Horrific Hexes and Nature's Nobility. No solace to be found among those leaves, to be sure.
Enough is enough, she decides. Mum always said there's no use in staying in bed when you can't sleep. You just get all worked up about it, and make it worse.
A candle, then, and a quick Incendio, and she slips out into the hall. She steps gingerly; the floorboards creak, and the last thing she wants is to call attention to herself. And why were you out of bed at this ungodly hour, young lady?
I was having bad thoughts about my best friend's godfather and I couldn't sleep.
In the stairwell, a bar of moonlight glints off a row of small glassy eyes. Hermione gasps, jumps back into the shadows, before she realizes what they are: the mounted heads of the Blacks' house-elves, one after another, grisly trophies of slavery.
She moves closer now, shining her light on the dead faces as if that will somehow honor them. She wants to see them all as distinct individuals. Every one of these heads held a mind. Dreams. This one here, with the nicked ear, what did she want out of life? Did she ever know there was life beyond this mouldering house?
Hermione tastes brine and realizes tears are flowing down her face.
Then a voice, almost a bark, "Aunt Isla? Is that you again? Bloody hell, you've been dead for how many years?"
Sirius emerges from the landing, brushing sable hair from his face with his long fingers. "Hermione? Sorry, I thought you were a ghost. Are you all right?"
"Oh…um, yeah, I'm fine. I was just having a cry about the poor house-elves. Never really had a chance, did they?"
She meets his eyes, and thinks about Sirius' own life--from this place to Azkaban to a dank cave in Hogsmeade and back again to this haunted ruin. She feels more tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. "Like...like you..."
His face falls into hard angles and downward lines, and it seems he's aged decades in a moment. "I don't need your pity," he mutters, and is gone in a whirl of hair and a rustle of robes.
"Sirius, wait…"
Groaning footsteps growing louder again, and he rounds the corner, this time looking not so much angry as weary.
"I'm sorry," she says, staring at her bare feet. "I didn't mean…"
"Just go back to bed, Hermione," he says, and pats her on the head in an avuncular sort of way. Shock of contact--her scalp burns where he touches it, and the unwanted images come rushing back. She hears a tiny moan, and her cheeks scorch when she realizes it's her voice.
His fingers twist, tangling in her damp hair and pulling her downcast face up to look at him. He's staring as if he's never seen her before. He leans in to claim her mouth. He's rough, and it's nothing like Viktor and his gentleness; this isn’t some courtly game of love, it's just need, and she answers his kiss with equal thirst.
He growls low in his throat as his hands roam over her body, teasing nipples to aching hardness through the thin sweat-logged cotton of her nightshirt. He fumbles with the shirt, swearing under his breath until he frees her of the sodden cloth. He casts it aside and lifts his own robes out of the way; pushes her against the wall and sinks into her. It's her first time and there's pain, but she's suddenly glad her mind's been in the gutter all night; she's wet and ready and that helps.
He thrusts urgently, hot breath moaning against her throat, and so soon, too soon, he comes, wet heat filling her.
He has tears in his eyes now, and bites his lip as though to stop them spilling over. "Hermione...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."
She aches; her clit throbs and there's a twisted sensation in her belly, almost nausea. "Please…"
"I know, I know…it was wrong, it won't happen again…" and this time he's walking away for real and she wants to call him back, but doesn't dare raise her voice lest someone find her here naked and begging.
She pulls the damp T-shirt back on. Outside, the heat has broken; rain sheets down relentlessly. At least the shirt's long, she thinks, deciding not to care if someone sees her as she slips out the back door to rendezvous with the storm.
Hermione opens her mouth to taste the chilly water on her tongue, and feels the rain sluicing down to soak her hair, her shirt. She shivers, and almost smiles.