A New Definition of Family
Chapter 8: Romantic Intuition
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don’t own any of JK Rowling’s characters. If I did, then I’d be typing this from my vacation home in Cozumel. And my cabana boy would be bringing me chilled drinks with little paper umbrellas in them. Shirtless. Sigh…any characters you see here that you don’t find in her books, well, they are products of my fertile and fevered imagination.
A/N: I know, I know…I was a long time getting this up. Was it worth the wait? Well, when you are done reading, go to the review button and tell me!
Harry sat up in his bed in Ron’s room, the first hints of dawn creeping from behind the curtains. He’d been roused from a vaguely disturbing dream that seemed to slip from his memory as soon as he woke. He was filled with foreboding and rubbed absently at the scar on his forehead as he tried to orient himself. Then he heard what had originally woken him: a tap-tap-tap at the window. He got up and opened the curtains to the barely breaking day, fumbling with the catch before opening the window. Hedwig flew in silently and landed on the footboard of Harry’s bed. He padded over to her and retrieved the letter from her outstretched leg.
“How is he, girl?” he whispered softly. Hedwig hooted serenely and started preening. Harry took this to mean all was well with Sirius. He opened the letter, and read it.
Dear Harry,
Arinna Dunlevy is your godmother, although why she has not revealed that fact to you, I cannot fathom. On my discovery last year that you had been placed with your aunt and uncle, I had my doubts about where her loyalties lie, as she was to be your guardian should anything happen to me (per your parents’ wishes). I wish I could tell you that you can trust her, but I honestly cannot guess as to her motivation for coming back into your life after all these years. At best, I can say be careful, and if you have any doubts or suspicions, contact Dumbledore or Lupin. I will be, of course, seeking out additional information about her and I will contact you as soon as I know anything more. I suspect we will be seeing each other sooner than we expected.
Take care of yourself,
Sirius
Two hours later, Ron woke to find Harry sitting on the window seat with his knees drawn up to his chin, staring out the window in thought.
“What’s up, Harry?” he queried. Harry held the letter out to him. Ron padded over to take it and sat down on the opposite end of the window seat to read it.
“What’s he mean when he says ‘I had my doubts about where her loyalties lie?’” Ron wondered.
“Dunno,” was Harry’s lackluster reply.
“And why would he think we can’t trust her? He was going to marry her, or did marry her, right?”
“Dunno.”
Ron’s musings were interrupted by a gentle rapping at the boys’ bedroom door, soft enough to not wake them had they been sleeping, but loud enough for them to hear now.
Ron moved quietly to the door and opened it to reveal Hermione looking sleepy with wild hair everywhere.
“Oh, so you are awake, then. I was hoping you were. I couldn’t get back to sleep.” She glanced to Harry in the window, who was staring out on the now pink and orange sky despondently. “What’s going on with him?” she asked Ron softly.
Ron handed her the letter from Sirius. She looked at it curiously as she walked over to Harry’s bed and sat on the edge to read, absently patting Hedwig as she passed.
When she was done, she looked at Ron. She raised her eyebrows inquiringly, jerking her head toward Harry. Ron knew what she was asking: is he all right? He frowned and shook his head slightly, giving a small shrug: I’m not sure…he won’t talk to me. Hermione nodded in comprehension, got up from the bed, and moved to sit with Harry in the window.
“All right, Harry?” she asked quietly.
But Harry was not all right. He had been stunned by Sirius’ letter: not by the suspicious tone; not by all the things that were said, or left unsaid; but by the implication that Sirius was coming back to England. I suspect we will be seeing each other sooner than we expected.
He turned to Hermione, face full of self-reproach. “He’s coming back here, Mione. He’s risking himself and returning all because I wrote that wretched note asking for information about Rinna.” He smacked his forehead with his hand. “I’m so stupid! Why did I write him? He doesn’t have any answers for me; he’s been in Azkaban all this time. All I did was get him worried and thinking he had to come back to protect me, and why? Because I was too impatient to wait for answers!”
“Harry, you don’t know for sure that Sirius is coming back…” Hermione started.
Harry interrupted, “Look at the last line. He’s coming back. Why else would he say we will be seeing each other sooner than expected?” He pulled the letter from Hermione’s hand, his voice rising in pitch in his anxiety. “And look at this part. It says he will be seeking out more information about her. He’s going to be putting himself out there asking questions and jeopardizing his safety, and the worst thing is, it will be for nothing. I already have gotten answers to my questions.”
“Have you, Harry?” Hermione asked sharply, “Have you really gotten answers?”
This brought Harry up short and reined in his hysteria. “What do you mean, Mione?”
“I mean that she hasn’t really given you many answers.” Hermione began to tick off her points on her fingers. “She told you she was friends with your mum, but hasn’t told you anything about her, really. She let you discover she was your godmother in a roundabout way. She hasn’t even told you about her relationship with Sirius!”
Harry and Ron, who had pulled up a chair to join them by the window, were slightly taken aback by her vehemence.
“Don’t you think she would mention something as important as being the fiancée of your godfather?” she demanded.
“Well,” Ron said thoughtfully, “Sirius doesn’t mention it either.”
Hermione’s mouth snapped shut on what she was going to say next, as her eyebrows moved closer together in puzzlement. She pulled the letter from Harry’s hands. “You’re right!”
Harry took the letter back and scanned it again. “I didn’t even notice that. Why wouldn’t he tell me that, you know, he has a history with her?”
Hermione left the window seat to pace about the room in thought. She turned to the boys and said, a bit dramatically, “Perhaps it is a checkered history with her, and that’s why he hasn’t mentioned it.”
Ron chortled. “A ‘checkered history?’ Really, Hermione, have you been reading my mother’s romance novels? Where do you come up with something like that?”
Hermione’s eyes flashed, and her cheeks reddened in anger. She crossed her arms and glared at Ron. “Just because you have all the romantic intuition of a tree stump…”
Ron was actively hooting with laughter now and Harry was smiling. “Romantic intuition?” Ron howled. “Since when did nose-in-a-book, practical, rational, no-nonsense Hermione Granger develop ‘romantic intuition?’”
Harry grabbed Ron’s arm. “No, no. It’s a genetic thing. All girls have ‘romantic intuition chromosomes’ you see. They can lie dormant for long periods of time, but suddenly spring to life…”
“Fine,” Hermione snarled, “If you want to make fun of me, fine. But I’m not going to stay here and listen.” With a defiant toss of her hair, she turned and stalked toward the door.
Instantly, the smile fled from Harry’s face. “No, wait, Hermione!” He jumped up and crossed the room to grab her arm just as she reached for the doorknob. “Please don’t go.” He spun her around and looked at her earnestly. “We’re sorry for poking fun, aren’t we, Ron?”
Ron managed to pull a reasonably convincing penitent face and nodded vigorously.
“Besides, I really want to hear your ‘checkered history’ theory,” Harry said cajolingly while flashing his most winning smile at her.
Hermione relented. It was rather hard to stay mad at Harry when he gave her the smile at full voltage. “Oh, all right. As long as you two will stop being absolute prats about it.”
“Can’t help it,” Ron quipped. “It’s genetic. We have those ‘absolute prat chromosomes,’ you know.”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed as he led Hermione back to the window seat. “They’re located right next to the ‘belching and passing gas chromosomes.’”
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. “Honestly, I don’t know why I put up with you two.”
“Why, it’s because we are the wittiest and most charming blokes you know!” declared Ron, puffing out his chest a bit.
“Oh yeah, that’s the reason,” she retorted sarcastically. She settled herself more comfortably in the window seat and looked up. A pair each of green and blue eyes was trained on her, radiating genuine interest in what she had to say. As infuriating as those two could be, it was moments like this that reminded her how good they were for her self-esteem. She loved it when they hung on her every word, impressed and admiring.
“C’mon, Mione,” Harry wheedled, turning on the charming smile once again. “Enlighten us on your ‘checkered history’ theory.”
“Yes, O brilliant one, impart your wisdom upon us.” Ron bowed over her hand and kissed it dramatically.
Oh yes. Those two really knew how to work her, didn’t they? She picked up the letter and perused it. “Well…notice the hostile tone. He only mentions her name once. He questions her loyalty, whether or not she can be trusted…doesn’t sound like someone who is all lovey-dovey over her, now does it?”
“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Harry mused.
“And it stands to reason,” Hermione continued, “that he wouldn’t question her loyalty unless she had done something disloyal before.”
Harry squirmed uncomfortably. “Ah come on, Mione, that’s all just speculation. Besides, he questioned her loyalty because I was placed with the Dursleys, and we all know why she didn’t take me in. So he’s wrong; it’s not that she was disloyal, it was because she was, well, hospitalized.”
“Well, I still say he doesn’t sound like someone who is in love with her. I think they had a falling out, and the relationship went bad.”
“Mione, how can you get that from one short letter?” Ron wondered.
“Not just the letter. Look at what else we know.” Again, she began to tick off her points on her fingers. “He didn’t mention their relationship, and she hasn’t either. She hid all the pictures of him, like she didn’t want to be reminded of him.”
“Then why didn’t she just remove the pictures?” Harry asked.
Hermione waved his words aside. “And he never asked you about her that night at Hogwarts, you or Professor Lupin.”
It was Ron’s turn to protest. “There was no time. They were dealing with Pettigrew and then Lupin turned into a werewolf! And then you were busy helping Sirius escape. Not really any chance to say, ‘Excuse me, but would you happen to know about my wife, fiancée, whatever?’”
“And I don’t think they ever were married, by the way,” she continued on, blithely ignoring Ron.
“Hang on, what make’s you say that?” questioned Ron.
“Honestly, Ron, it is so obvious,” she snapped.
“Why don’t you pretend we’re idiots, and spell it out for us?” suggested Harry.
“I don’t have to pretend,” she muttered. Then she declared, “There are no wedding pictures in her album. And her last name isn’t ‘Black.’”
“Well, maybe she didn’t change her name. Some witches don’t, you know. And maybe she put her wedding pictures in another album,” Ron countered.
“And maybe I’m right!” Hermione’s voice increased in volume to override Ron’s. “Don’t you think I could be right?” She turned to Harry.
“I dunno,” he pondered. “What you are saying does make sense…but…”
“But what, mate?” asked Ron.
“Well, it just seemed that, when we were telling her about Sirius and Pettigrew and everything…well, she seemed to want to hear about him. And she didn’t act like she was angry, but more like she was…sad, you know?”
“Oh,” said Hermione, taking this in. Harry was right. She started to recalculate her assessment.
Ron snapped his fingers. “Suppose that he broke it off with her, and she is still in love with him. That would make sense, then.”
Hermione and Harry both stared at him, mouths open.
“What?” Ron demanded, “Maybe I do have more ‘romantic intuition’ than a tree stump, after all.”
“Highly doubtful, dear,” countered Hermione, patting Ron on the shoulder patronizingly, “but that was some good deductive reasoning. There may be hope for you yet.”
”Gee, thanks, Miss Megabrain!” he snarked.
Harry let out a huge sigh. “The truth is, we have no idea about any of this stuff. We’re just going around in circles.”
“Well we do know that Sirius doesn’t have any answers for Harry about her,” Hermione pointed out. “In fact, we know more about her since the night that Harry’s parents…uh, since that night, than he does.”
“And we know that he’s coming back to England to find out more about her,” Harry added.
Hermione started to protest, “Harry, we don’t know for sure that Sirius is coming back…”
“I know, Hermione,” Harry interrupted with conviction. “I just know.”
There was a long, thoughtful pause. Then Ron spoke, “If he is coming back, then he is probably going to come here. I think we should tell my folks about this. I sure would hate for Mum and Dad to have a coronary when Sirius shows up at our doorstep.”
“You’re right, Ron,” said Hermione quietly. “And it would be awful if someone acted first and asked questions later.”
They both looked to Harry. “I suppose you are right,” he said reluctantly. He was worried about exposing Sirius’ secret to too many people. But if he was coming to the Burrow… “I guess we should do it before your dad leaves for work, then.”
They all stood up, and Hermione and Ron moved toward the door. When it was opened, the yummy smell of rashers of bacon being cooked up assailed their noses, and three stomachs growled in unison. “And we can eat breakfast at the same time,” grinned Ron happily as he left the room with Hermione.
Harry paused at his bed, pulled out the green album and flipped to the pages with pictures of Sirius and Rinna. They looked so happy, like they were giddy-in-love. He didn’t want to believe Hermione’s theories, or Ron’s for that matter. He really wanted for them to still be in love; he wanted the hope that they could be his godparents together, that the three of them could be a family. It was all he could think about since the charm had been taken off the pictures. He closed the album and slowly turned toward the door.
Rinna kicked off her high heeled shoes and changed into yoga pants and a t-shirt. She glanced at the clock: a quarter to three. She’d only worked three and a half hours, but she was tired from the day before that she had spent with Remus and Dorrie. Unfortunately, she could not do what she wanted to do, which was go to sleep and wake up around noon. She had to reset her internal clock if she was to attend the festivities for Harry’s birthday tomorrow, so she planned on staying up now and not going to bed until this evening. Ugh. The thought of a job with normal daytime hours was very tempting, but she had promised Remus she would talk to Albus, and she would keep her word.
Since there was little else she could accomplish at three in the morning, she took out parchment and began writing to Dumbledore. She heard the clock strike the hour. About twenty-five minutes later, she felt she’d written a small novel, but was satisfied with her letter, and she attached the curriculum vitae to the letter before shrinking both down to a more manageable size. She’d post it later in the day.
The hall clock struck once, bringing her head up and snapping her into a pleasant memory of a very well spent 15 minutes with Remus a few hours ago. It was nice, she reflected, to kiss just for the sake of kissing, with no ulterior motives. Granted, their time had been limited, so there wasn’t much chance to progress further, but the last time she could remember when kissing had been the means to an end and not just foreplay was back in school…with Sirius her mind whispered to her.
Well, yes, with Sirius, of course, but there had been that time, as Remus had reminded her, on her fourteenth birthday, before she had ever thought of Sirius as anything other than a self-centered annoying git who thought he was God’s Gift to Women. That time when she and Remus had kissed for five wonderful minutes. If she hadn’t been so naïve, so inexperienced, she would have realized the genuine chemistry they had had, and things may have turned out a lot differently… As it was, it took snogging a few other boys to realize that the whole knee-wobbling, tummy turning, getting all warm down there feeling was not a common one, and by then it was too late to think about pursuing anything with Remus… Sirius Black had entered her stratosphere.
She shook her head with annoyance. That was twice now in about as many minutes that Sirius had snuck into her thoughts about Remus. She paused. And that time when she woke up with Remus in her bed last month, he’d popped into her head then. And yesterday, when they were walking to the pub…
Her eyes swept the room and landed on the Silver Dart. The memory it had brought to her mind a few nights ago had been so vivid…
She growled in vexation. She used to be so good at blocking him out…what happened? You started opening your heart a little; opening it to Harry and to Remus. She stood stock still. Her boys. She had locked them all away in her heart for different reasons all those years ago. All three of them: Harry, Remus and…Sirius, had been barricaded away so she wouldn’t feel the pain of losing two of them and leaving the third.
She began pacing the living room in frustration. So if she was carefully letting Harry and Remus out, well it stood to reason that Sirius would insist on barreling out too. A specter of a smile tugged at her lips; that was also very in-character for Sirius, making sweeping entrances onto the stage in her mind and demanding she rip her thoughts away from Remus and focus the spotlight on him. Once he had crossed the trajectory of her orbit back at school, that was how things had been. He’d always made it impossible for her to entertain thoughts about any other bloke because suddenly he would be there; captivating her, his outrageous personality pulling her in like a magnet attracts a nail…
She ripped herself away from the memory so forcefully that she physically jerked her body, and collided with the old trunk she had set on the ottoman, causing it to tip over and fall. With an exasperated sound, she dropped to her knees and began picking up the items that had spilled. Old papers, hair clips, drawings, Quidditch wrist guards, notebooks filled with old Potions notes, school books, a Muggle LP featuring that American boy that Lily had been infatuated with, oh what was his name? Oh, yes, David Cassidy…
Damn it, why did she have to spill that trunk, anyway. She was trying to get away from memories, not conjure up more of them! She resolved to slam all the items back into the trunk as fast as she could pick them up and was doing an admirable job of it…You still have those Quidditch reflexes, old girl. You’ll need them tomorrow… when her hand fell upon an almost square velvet box.
Rinna froze. All the oxygen seemed to have been sucked from the room, and her breath came in frantic gasps. No, no, no…why did I have to find this NOW of all times? The box was the size of her outstretched hand and covered in black velvet. She had no voluntary control of her hands as they moved to open the hinged top. She had no voluntary control of the memory that flooded her mind.
Rinna’s trembling hands opened the box. Inside, nestled in the black velvet, was a ruby pendant in the shape of a tear drop with three small diamonds at the bale. She gasped, “It’s beautiful!”
“Here, let’s see how it looks on you,” Sirius suggested as he unclasped the gold chain and walked around behind her. He reached around her to place the necklace at her throat, and she lifted her hair so he could close the clasp. She turned around for him to see; it twinkled on her fair skin like a drop of rich red wine.
“Did you know that the ruby has been prized throughout history as a talisman against evil? Here, take a look,” he said as he turned her around and walked her to the mirror. She gasped at the image and raised her hand to her throat to touch the gem. Her eyes found his in the mirror as he stood behind her with his hands resting lightly, yet possessively on her shoulders.
“Oh, Blackie, it’s so beautiful,” she breathed.
“It is almost as gorgeous as you are,” he murmured in a low voice as he swept her hair aside to place a sensuous kiss on her neck. “I searched near and far for a beautiful ruby for my beautiful Ruby.” The huskiness in his voice and the languorous kiss on her neck effectively removed the bones from her lower extremities and she swayed. Strong arms encircled her, and his lips continued their magic.
“Why am I getting this now?” she wanted to know. She caught his eyes in the mirror. “My birthday isn’t for two more weeks.”
He smiled his lop-sided smile that had been designed for the sole purpose of making her light-headed. “Oh, it’s not a birthday present.”
“What? But you already gave me a Christmas present.”
“Can’t I give you a present for no particular reason?”
“Not when it is as beautiful and, I imagine, expensive as this one, no. There has got to be a reason.”
“All right, here’s my reason: The other day, and night, for that matter, was…amazing.” He stopped, at a loss for words.
A knowing smirk crossed her face. “Ah, so this is a ‘thanks for finally letting me get in your knickers’ present, then?” she said lightly.
A spasm of hurt crossed Sirius’ face, and he grabbed her shoulders, roughly turning her to face him. “Damn it, Rinna,” he grated out passionately, “don’t make it sound so cheap. It meant much more to me than that!” He flexed his fingers, shaking her slightly. “I can’t ever imagine being with anyone else but you again, ever.” He let go of her and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You are…you’re…”
She stepped closer to him, placing her fingers on his lips, looking into his stormy sapphire eyes. “Shhhh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so flippant. You know I would never treat your feelings for me lightly.” Her arms slipped around his neck as she brought her lips close to his ear and whispered her throaty words, “I’m yours. I don’t want to be anyone’s but yours.”
Once again his lips seared the column of her neck, and once again her knees trembled at the sensation of his lips on her skin. She raised her chin and sought his mouth with hers. The intensity of his emotions blazed through her, mingling with her own passion and returning to him through the force of their kiss. If the world stopped right now, it would be fine with her. She wouldn’t even notice. All she was aware of was her man: his lips, his tongue, his hands on her body, and her bursting heart pulsing with fire.
He pulled away, but only by inches, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Arinna Dunlevy, I love you.”
“And I love you, Sirius Black,” she replied as tears trickled down to her upturned lips. He pulled her in to his chest in a tight embrace, and she snaked her arms around him just as tightly.
“Ah, Ruby-Red, I could spend forever here in your arms,” he said hoarsely.
“Then why don’t you?” she whispered back.
She knelt in front of the ottoman, sobs wracking her body, as she pulled the necklace from the velvet and clasped it around her neck. She wept for her loss as she had not done in all this time, with plaintive whimpers and loud cries and shuddering gasps. Her release threatened to rip through her, and she was concerned that she might not be able to stop the flood, but she could not remove her hands from her face or stem the flow of tears.
Finally it tapered off and she collapsed limply onto the ottoman, resting her head on her arms, spent. She felt the red briolette as it hung at her throat, bathed in her tears. It was so monstrously unfair…that she could still love him so after all these years, and when there was little hope that he would ever forgive her or want her again.
A/N: Love it? Hate it? Please let me know. I crave, salivate, slobber for reviews!