Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
Common Bonds
Hanging from my fingertips, you're a phantom limb
Start to slide, branches die, I'm buried under it
Thought I was climbing by your side, you left me behind
I saw our future up ahead, now it's caving in
(Avalanche - Flyleaf)December 25th, 1995It was late Christmas evening when Sirius found Hermione curled up in the library
with a book. It had been the best holiday he'd had in years, for obvious reasons; it was not
as though the warden brought Christmas trees into Azkaban, after all.
"Hey there," he said, smiling at the little witch, who turned and smiled back at him
when she looked up from her textbook.
"Hello, Sirius."
He took a seat across from her in a big, leather chair, setting down two steaming
mugs of hot chocolate on the table between them. He gestured to one, and she blushed
prettily as she accepted it; the pink on her cheeks reminded him of the wild peonies that
grew around the outside of the Hogwarts greenhouses.
"This is delicious," she told him after taking a sip.
"Remus's recipe. Also Remus's chocolate, but you didn't hear that from me," he
told her and then winked.
She laughed, and he felt like his heart could burst at the sound.
"Are you having a good Christmas?" she politely asked him as she took another sip
of her drink, closing her book and setting it down on the sofa beside her.
"Grand," he answered joyfully. "Surrounded by family and friends, and decorations
all over that are doing their hardest to cover this horrid place with holiday cheer." He
chuckled and then looked back down at her, noticing the brief flash of sadness in her eyes.
"At least, it was pretty cheerful until you lot came back from St Mungo's. Is everything
okay? Molly's pretty much fit to be tied, but I'm not stupid enough to ask her what's wrong
just in case it's something I've done."