A/N: So, I recently became addicted with "Once More, With Feeling", also known as episode seven of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ever since, I had all the songs of that episode running through my head, and they quickly mingled with possible pairings, and some of them had love children that I am now trying to work into stories.

This one will be published in three to four parts, and follows Hermione's growth from girl into woman. In the episode it is sung by Spike, portraied by the talented James Marster, but I applied the lyrics to another delicious bad boy here. Hermione may appear quite OOC in this story, but we since only see her from Harry's perspective in the books (and let's be honest, Harry was quite beside himself during most of OOTP), we do not really know how Hermione coped with puberty. And much as I am one of those Hermione-fans who simply say she skipped puberty in and of itself, I hereby present to you my take on what the beginning of maturity might have looked for her, but from another's perspective. Enjoy!

I died,

So many years ago,

But you can make me feel

Like it isn't so.

And why you come to be with me,

I think I finally know:

Sirius hated number 12, Grimmauld Place, with a vengeance. He had hated it as a kid, growing up with the heads of decapitated House Elves on the walls of the sinister house, and he hated it now, as an adult, cooped up in those same walls that he had fought so hard to escape.

But where had that escape led him? Azkaban, the feared wizarding prison. Azkaban, Hell on Earth. Azkaban, death to the young energetic man that had entered the draughty halls guarded by soul-sucking monsters. Azkaban, birthing place to the broken fugitive that he was now.

Two years had he spent on the run; one running towards his godson, one away from his persecutors. When Albus had asked him whether he might avail Grimmauld Place as headquarters to the Order, he had not hesitated for a second. But these last few weeks he had spent under Molly Weasley's thumb as she had him help clean the place from top to bottom, he had come to almost regret his decision.

Not that he minded scourging his family seat of all the darkness and decay that the Blacks had accumulated over the centuries; no, it was the way that Molly chased him from room to room, corner to corner, draping to draping, and closet to closet, in her wild cleaning binge, that drove him mad more than being cooped up in this Light-forsaken place.

Until she came.

When he had first met her, she'd been a frightened fourteen-year-old that had stood up to her friends in order to have him, who they still thought to be a mass murderer and traitor of her best friend's parents, answer to her logical questions. He had admired her then, and had admired her even more a few hours later, when she accompanied his godson on a Hippogriff in order to rescue him from his temporary prison in the Astronomy tower.

The second time they'd met had been exactly nine months later, in a cave near Hogsmeade. He had not exactly looked his best then, and she had been bundled up in thick winter clothes, as March in Scotland was always harsh.

Now, a few months later, she brightened the house with her smile, or at least it seemed that way to Sirius. Hermione Granger had blossomed over the time since he had last seen her, and was now a confident, out-spoken, beautiful young woman.

Sirius came to spend time with Hermione, as the evenings often found her in the library, curled up in one of the cushioned armchairs in front of the fire, hair held back in a messy makeshift bun as her head was bent over one thick tome or another, at an angle that made Sirius's neck hurt just from looking at her. His liquor cabinet was conveniently situated in the library as well, and so it came that he often sat across from her and enjoyed her presence. From time to time, Remus would accompany them, and together they would indulge in pleasant banter, or sophisticated discussion over the odd scientific and/or magical topic.

Sirius especially valued the evenings that he was alone with her. They would sit in long, comfortable silence, infused only with the crackling of the fire and the occasional turning of a page. He would sip on his heavy crystal tumbler of firewhiskey, and she would have her eyes fixed on the words written on the page before her, drinking in their knowledge. Her breasts, clad in a skimpy top due to the heat of the fire, would swell and abate, like the tide, with her every breath. It became the most fascinating sight to Sirius, and he could hardly tear his eyes away. Whenever he did manage to raise his gaze to her face, it was only to see a knowing smile playing around her lips, though her eyes never met his.

A week flew by, and most of a second quickly followed, as Sirius spiralled deeper and deeper into his obsession that was the curly-haired beauty prancing about the house, banishing the darkness with her every smile and scourging away the decay with every peal of her laughter. Her youthful mirth and optimistic nature helped Sirius forget the years he had spent living in hell, in a deathlike trance that could hardly be called an existence at all. Instead, her presence called back the life that had been forcibly ripped away from him, that day that a number was branded into his skin and a bolted door shut in front of his face.

Until it was one Friday night, close to two weeks into his falling for the charms of one Miss Hermione Granger, that there was a knock on the door to his room. It was late, close to midnight, and all Order members had either left for bed, or for their homes, or for whatever plans they had for a Friday night in mid-July. Hermione had left for her bed an hour earlier, and Sirius had turned in shortly after she had. Meaning to go to sleep in a minute, he had just extinguished the fire in the generous fireplace that came with the bedroom befitting the Black heir. Sirius hated this room, and had done his best to deface it in his youth, colouring it in gold and Gryffindor crimson, and plastering the walls with posters of Muggle beauties on Muggle bikes.

He now regretted that decision as he opened the door to the petite girl that had come to occupy his every waking and dreaming moment.

Hermione stood there, clad in an oversized shirt that almost fully hid her hip-hugging shorts, her hair little successfully tamed into a French braid that spilled messy, wilful curls every inch of the way. She had never looked more beautiful to him.

As it was, it took him a minute to take in her sight, and then another to get his brain working again.

"Hermione," he said, his surprise clear in his deep voice, "what are you doing here?"

She shuffled from foot to foot before replying, "Well, Ginny and my room is cold, but she's already sleeping, only I couldn't fall asleep in the cold, and since I'm not allowed to do magic outside Hogwarts yet, I couldn't light the fireplace, and –"

"I see," Sirius interrupted her flood of words. "Do you want me to light your fire?"

He inwardly groaned at his phrasing, as soon as the words had left his mouth. It was exactly what he wanted to do to her, only thinly veiled in the reason that had brought her to his room.

"There's no need for that, Sirius," she replied with that knowing smile on her face that he had come to think of as his, and his alone; only now, she was looking into his eyes with that smile on her lips, and he was almost certain, almost certain that she knew what he had not meant to say, and that she meant what he so longed to hear.

"You know," she said, as if oblivious to his musings, though her smile still told him that she very clearly wasn't, "there are other ways of staying warm."

His dumb-founded expression and the fact that he still had not moved to invite her in must have prompted her to clarify, because she pressed on, "Muggle ways."

And when he still did not make room for her, she took it for herself. Pushing around his strong frame in the doorway, her breasts skimmed his torso as she crossed into his room, and sauntering towards his bed, she pulled back the covers and climbed in.

Sirius couldn't believe his luck, but closed the door and warded it for good measure, unwilling to let this dream escape that had just insinuated itself into his bed. Slowly unbuttoning his shirt and letting it fall from his shoulders, he revelled in the shy, but scourging hot gaze that followed every patch of his skin he revealed. Unlacing and kicking off his boots, he unbuckled his belt and shoved off his heavy leather pants. Not meaning to scare her away, he kept his boxers on and lazily walked towards the bed. When he stood in front of it, he shot her one last look, silently asking for her permission and her assurance.

"Come to bed, Sirius," the siren that was Hermione beckoned, "and cuddle me."

And why you come to be with me,

I think I finally know:

You're scared,

Ashamed of what you feel,

And you can't tell the ones you love,

You know they couldn't deal.

Whisper in a dead man's ear,

It doesn't make it real.

And so Sirius suffered through night after night of cuddling the girl he desired. Hermione would come to his room late at night, when everybody else was already sleeping, and climb into his bed. When Sirius joined her, she would shuffle close to him, until his front comfortably spooned her back – for warmth, she would reason with that knowing smile of hers – and wiggle until her bum was pressed against his rather substantial bulge. She would giggle seductively at his frustrated groan and grind her delicious backside into Sirius's crotch once more for good measure, until one of his big, warm hands gripped her hip in order to keep her still, while the other combed through her hair until it was well and thoroughly entangled in her curls, and pull lightly, which would in turn pull the most delightful moans from deep within Hermione's throat.

Over the nights that she came to him, Hermione gradually allowed his hands to roam further, though he did not know whether that was by conscious decision or by loss of blood flow in her brain as she became more and more pulled into the pleasure that Sirius bestowed on her, within the meagre limits provided to him. That first Friday night, she had grabbed his hand in a death grip when he made so much as to slip under her shirt to rest on the warm skin of her taut stomach. This Friday, one week later, she happily pushed into the fingers that twisted her naked nipples, though still under the restraints of her shirt – Sirius had yet to see her beautiful torso in the light, happy though he was with feeling her smooth skin under his rough fingertips.

He knew he had little time. After all, a week from now, Harry would arrive, and would take up most of his time, and/or Hermione's. Gone would be their pleasant evenings in the library, just between the two of them with the occasional visit from Remus. Gone would be the seductive looks she now shot him while cleaning. Gone her bell-like laughter that was just for him.

Little did Sirius know that all that might be gone much faster, and at no fault of Harry's.

Emboldened by the fact that time that was running out fast, as it seemed to him, Sirius left her breasts with one last tweak to her right nipple, and slid his hand slowly down her body towards her core. When Hermione made no move to stop him, he slipped under the waistband of her shorts. They both moaned simultaneously as his fingers met her hot nether lips. Sirius cupped her mound, pulling her further into him, as he ground his hard member into the crevice of her lower cheeks that hugged him so perfectly.

His middle finger slowly entered her heated core. Sirius listened to her breathing, moving in a rhythm that her lungs set for him, and added a second finger when her breath hitched. His thumb found that sweet button that was soon to rock her world, if he had his way. Unwilling to only lie behind his little witch, however, Sirius extracted both his hands from Hermione's body – she helped with the one that was still firmly entangled in her curls, as he could never get it out, and certainly not without pain to her scalp –, rose into a kneeling position, pulled her leg that was closer to him up and over his head, and lowered both the leg and himself until he was half-kneeling, half-lying over her body and between her legs. He leaned down onto one elbow, the hand of the same arm encouragingly stroking her wild mane, as the other insinuated itself once more into the pleasure that the apex of her thighs promised.

His fingers swiftly resumed their position where they had left off mere seconds before, and Sirius soon had a very hot and very bothered witch writhing beneath him. His cock ached as he watched her climb the spiral that led to that sweet climax of pleasure, and his fingers coached her all the way. When his thumb found that one perfect movement that sent her over the edge, he almost came just from watching her tumble over and off the cliff, into the abyss of the first orgasm she derived from his handiwork. In that moment, Sirius promised himself that it wouldn't be the last.

That promise came close to being forever impossible to fulfil with his next words.

"Let me make love to you, Hermione."

Her eyes shot open so wide that even in the dark, Sirius could clearly see the white there. She scrambled away from him, her quick movement dislodging the fingers that had still nestled comfortably in her wet core.

"No," she said with an absoluteness to her voice that had Sirius heart break more than just a little, "no. Never."

"Why not?" Sirius asked, desperation disgustingly audible in his voice. In this moment, he could not care less.

"I am preserving myself for my future husband," came her haughty reply.

And since his blood had obviously completely left his brain, Sirius followed up with, "Marry me, then."

And he meant it.

Hermione, however, did not deign him worthy of an answer, it seemed, as she hurried to leave his bed, although she made sure to do so with a most heart-crushing hauteur. The door fell shut behind her with more power than necessary.

Sirius quickly dismantled the wards that would keep anyone from entering his room from the outside, in case she came back. Then he fell back onto the bed and into a fitful sleep. His last thought before blessed darkness was, 'Well, she did not exactly say No.'

Hermione did not come back the following night, nor the one after that, or the one after that. In fact, she did not join Sirius in bed again for more nights than he could count in one hand, and that was entirely too much for his taste.

Not only did she stay away from his room, she also kept a distance from his person. Where Hermione had before sought him out in every room she entered, and had deliberately sauntered closer to him while cleaning, she now kept to the far corner of any room they were both in. She even went so far as to suggest that they should split up in order to accelerate their cleaning progress. Sirius felt immense relief when Molly vehemently shot that suggestion down as soon as Hermione had offered it, stating that no child of hers (and she seemed to count Hermione among those) would be left in close contact with Dark objects and cleaning utensils without adult supervision at any time. Sirius thought himself lucky for just that once that she obviously did not count him as an adult.

What Sirius missed terribly, more so even than Hermione's playfully seductive behaviour during their forced cleaning binge, were their comfortable silences in the library. She now only entered that favourite room of hers when she saw that Remus was joining them as well, and left before he did. In short, Hermione made certain not to find herself alone with Sirius anymore.

Their whole interaction with each other changed when Harry arrived a week later. Well, a little over a week later, to be exact, as Sirius's godson was busy shouting at people close to him for quite a while once he joined them at Grimmauld Place. The rational part of Sirius understood; the part yearning for his passionate witch back, however – and that part had mostly swallowed up the other a good time ago –, was desperate for Harry to shut the fuck up and quit his miserable whining. There were certainly bigger issues at hand here, for example the fact that the object of his obsession was missing from Sirius's bed every night.

Where Sirius had expected his relationship with Hermione to change for the worse with Harry's arrival, however, it changed much for the better.

It all came with Ron's new-found masculinity and the disgust of all things female that accompanied it. Lucky for Sirius, the perfectly symmetrical and heavenly smooth mounds that Hermione's breasts had developed into counted among those things.

And so it happened that on one of their cleaning days (which was every day, to be honest), Ginny and Hermione sauntered into the room a little after the boys. Hermione already began to make her way into the corner furthest away from Sirius, as was her wont these days, when Ron failed to keep his big mouth shut.

"What by Merlin's hairy balls are you wearing, 'Mione?" he asked, his mouth gaping open, his face distorted into an expression of severest disgust. "Did you forget to put on any clothes this morning?"

Hermione looked down her body. Sirius followed her gaze and appreciated what he saw there. As usual, she was clad in hip-hugging shorts and a tight tank top that appropriately framed her beautiful breasts for his viewing pleasure. Ron had never spoken out against her clothing style during cleaning before, but it seemed that with his best friend back, he felt the sudden need to become the mindless git that Harry knew him to be.

"Well, I did not want to get my burka dirty, Ron," Hermione shot back. "By the way, you should grow up and work on your swearing. 'Merlin's hairy balls,' really? Can you become any less mature? And also, did you notice that you're the only one to mind here?"

"Am not," Ron countered little eloquently.

"Well, for example, Sirius doesn't mind, does he?" his little witch replied in a sweet voice, and sauntered over towards him. Sirius, too happy at her sudden change in demeanour to remember not to believe his luck, greeted Hermione with a welcoming smile and winked at her seductively, which prompted her into a fit of the most wonderful giggles.

Thus it was that Sirius found himself in Hermione's good graces again. Together, they tackled the Doxy-infested curtains, just as Sirius heard Ron ask in the background, "What the heck is a bloody burka?"

When Sirius opened the door to her knock that night, his mouth fell open in pleasant shock. Hermione once more had to wiggle past him in order to climb into his bed, where she then proceeded to sit, a look of perfect innocence on her face, as if she had always come to him clad in nothing more than a silk chemise that left nothing to the imagination, not even the lacy knickers for which she had exchanged her shorts from before.

"You don't mind, do you, Sirius?" she asked sweetly.

Sirius rubbed his face, desperate to have her clothed more appropriately when he opened his eyes again, though what was appropriate attire for an underage witch sitting in her best friend's godfather's bed in the middle of the night, he could not say. And as nothing came up in his mind, he simply wished her to be clad in nothing.

When he opened his eyes, she still wore that damned sexy silk chemise with the lacy knickers.

Sirius groaned and climbed into bed with her. Laying down on his back, he sighed his content when she snuggled into his side, her fingers tracing lazy circles on the muscles of his naked torso.

"Why are you here, Hermione?" Sirius heard himself ask.

Her fingers stopped in their movement for less than a second, before she answered.

"My parents went to tour the continent, and as much as I wanted to come with them, I simply could not go travelling happily for weeks while I knew a war was brewing here. So I excused myself from the trip and arranged to come to headquarters instead."

"That's not what I meant," Sirius said, and knew that she knew that as well. "Why are you here?"

It took her a minute or two to answer.

"The others don't understand," she finally said, frustration audible in her voice. "I feel so… so… so, and they simply do not understand. You've seen Ron today, you've seen what I'm usually dealing with. I don't get that from you."

Sirius felt that they were on the right track, but still could not quite make do with her answer.

"What is it they don't understand, Hermione?"

"I went to the Yule Ball with Viktor, and Ron just got so angry and petty and childish over it. I knew then that I had been right not to tell the boys before that night who I was going with. I mean, we went to one bloody dance together, and even that Ron could not allow. As if I needed his permission for anything, least of all who I do what with. And it wasn't even that I went with Viktor, and that he got something Ron didn't. No, it was merely because I had a nice night, and Ron could not allow that."

"So what exactly is this about, Hermione?" Sirius queried, still puzzled. "Is this about Ron? Or about doing whatever you wish with whomever you wish? Or simply about having a nice night?"

He spat out the words as if personally offended because honestly, he was. Surely he could provide her with more than one night, and more than merely nice at that.

"I don't know where else to go, Sirius," Hermione offered in a small voice. He felt immediately bad for badgering her so, but he needed to know. "I just want to feel, and with you I can do that. I want to know, and I know you won't push me away. I need your company. I need your assurance. I need your acceptance."

'But you don't need me,' Sirius added darkly in his mind. What he said aloud instead was "Come here," as he pulled Hermione more firmly into his embrace.

He had never felt more alive than when he made Hermione come thrice that night.