In Perpetuum

Chapter 26

She was in the process of thinking of an escape route when she heard a voice buzz into her ear.

“Good morning beautiful.”

He nuzzled his face in towards her so that he could place a kiss on her forehead. He evidently was not confused at her sudden emergence in his bed. Hermione was not complaining.

“Good morning,” she replied, relaxing into his arms.

“Do you know,” said Sirius with a cheeky grin plastered across his face, “that I had the most wonderful dream that a gorgeous looking princess came into my room last night and decided to spend the night in my bed, without my having done anything to get her in there?”

Hermione chuckled lightly at this.

“Sounds like you’re still dreaming,” she teased.

“Best dream ever,” said Sirius while a faint pink blossomed across Hermione’s face and neck.

Hermione eased herself out of Sirius’ arms and finally managed to stretch.

“We had better get dressed and go down to breakfast before someone comes looking and thinks we are in a compromising position.”

Hermione retreated to her own bedroom to get change while leaving Sirius alone in his room so that he too could get changed.

They met at the top of the stairs and descended together, hand in hand, to the dining room below.

When they reached the room they saw that they were the last people down and that everyone else had begun to eat.

Hermione had begun to eat when she heard James speak to her from across the table.

“Mione, I went to your room this morning to find you, but you weren’t there. Where have you been all this time?”

He spoke innocently, but his face told a different story.

“I must had just been in the bathroom,” mumbled Hermione, who immediately looked over to her parents to see if they had heard.

Pops merely turned the page of the morning delivery of the ‘Prophet’, however Hermione turned just in time to see Ma lift her delicate brow.

Hermione blushed once more and quickly averted her eyes back down to her own plate of scrambled eggs. After a minute of concentrating on her breakfast she snuck a look over at Sirius who was unconcernedly working his way through several sausages, eggs, toast and bacon.

Hermione twisted her mouth in a disparaging manner, but said nothing.

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

“Whatcha doing?”

Hermione sat down next to Sirius just as he was hastily stowing away some pages of parchment.

“Oh...nothing,” he said a little too quickly.

“Really?” said Hermione in a teasing tone, “by the way that you put those pages out of sight so quickly, one might be tempted to think that you were up to something”.

Hermione pounced across Sirius’ lap in an effort to grab the pages, however, Sirius’ arms, thanks to his most recent growth spurt, were considerably longer than his girlfriend’s. However, his arms were not adequate enough to cover the title of the book. Even though the gold leaf was peeling away in places, Hermione could just about make out the letters.

“A...ANI...M...ANIM...GU...S...”

She stared at it for a full second before the clues clicked into place.

“Animagus?”

“Yes, that’s what it says.”

Excitement bubbled up inside Hermione. This was so much more than what she had hoped for. Usually she would have to spell it out for them, but she was considerably impressed that she did not have to put the effort in this time. It was getting a bit weary. Although, in their defence, they were quite good at stringing the clues together when provided with the proper information.

Hermione, of course, was not yet supposed to know about their animagi abilities, and so she posed the necessary questions.

“We don’t do human transfiguration until next year. Why do you have an animagi textbook?”

Sirius made a special effort of piling the books and pages on top of one another, and he spoke slowly. Hermione was unsure why he was taking so long to answer her. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that becoming an unregistered animagus was very, very illegal and Hermione was very, very law-abiding.

She could not help but wallow in her own self-consciousness at this thought, and wonder that despite all that happened to her, people still saw her as the prudish bookworm she used to be.

Realising that Sirius had started to speak, Hermione hastily re-arranged her features to an expression of mild interest and curiosity.

“Well,” said Sirius, still biding his time, “It is all because James had this idea that we could broaden our horizons and our education. We feel as though Hogwarts is limiting out magical studies.”

He paused for a moment, not knowing how to phrase his next words. Hermione took this opportunity to interject and say it for him.

“And so you have decided to learn to become animagi to ‘stretch your magical talent’ and sneak around the castle at night?”

 “I wouldn’t have said it in as many words, but yeah, that’s the gist of it.”

Sirius watched Hermione’s face intently, trying to gauge a reaction. Hermione, on the other hand, attempted to show no emotion at all, however, it did not last long.

Her face broke out into a massive grin.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea!”

The most dumbfounded expression was poised on Sirius’ face.

“Really? You actually think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Hermione, still beaming.

“Even though we are probably breaking a thousand and one rules to do it?”

“You could be breaking a million and one rules and I would still love it.”

“Wow,” said Sirius, still in a slight state of shock that his law-abiding girlfriend was willing him to do something that was not only very illegal, but potentially detrimental to his physical and mental self.

It was at times like this that Sirius counted his blessings and realised how lucky he was to have a girl like his Hermione.