Chapter Text
When Hermione was a little girl, her dad had read her a book of fairytales. Amongst the tales of princesses and faery courts and goblins and dragons, there had been a story about selkies, and longing, and love.
Hermione hadn’t liked that story very much.
In that particular tale, selkies were beautiful women with sealskin coats that would change them into seals. They lived in the sea, though they visited the land, and when they fell in love, their lovers would take their coats to keep them by their sides.
The selkie wife would long for the sea even as she bore children and made a life for herself. Even if she loved her husband. She would stay seven years, and then she would find her coat and leave.
No, Hermione hadn’t liked that story at all.
She liked it even less, now, although there really wasn’t a reason for it. Sirius was not a selkie. His jacket was buried so deeply somewhere in their house that even Hermione would have trouble finding it, and she was the one who had hidden it. She had warded it, too, so no one could touch it accidentally. The jacket was no one’s to find, and especially not Sirius'.
She also knew that Sirius didn’t want to move on to whatever came after death. She knew that he didn’t long for it. It was not his home; it was not where he belonged. He belonged to life, to the flush under a hot summer’s day, to conversations full of laughter, to love.
Most of all, Hermione knew that she would be returning his jacket to him with her own two hands one day, so they could cross over together. She wasn’t keeping him here against his will. She wasn’t.
Still.
Sometimes.
The guilt rose sharply in her chest, as did the fear. They were on borrowed time, she knew that, and it was hard to look the other way.
But on other days…
On other days, Hermione was so happy she couldn’t breathe.
The longer Sirius had stayed away from his jacket, the more solid he had become. She had always been able to touch him, but soon others could see and touch him, too—Harry, and Ron, and all the rest. Soon, he was doing everything she could, too, like he was truly back to the land of the living.
It was almost too easy, the life they began together.
Sirius asking her to marry him. The wedding.
Him moving into her flat, her bed.
The kids.
The life she had tried not to dream of because she was so worried it would never be hers…
She got it all, and Hermione didn’t know how she could be so lucky.
They had waited. They had waited the seven years before having kids, because it had been Sirius’ seventh visit when he had decided to stay, and Hermione wanted to be sure. But their first daughter was born exactly a year and a day after, and she was everything they had dreamed of.
Silver eyes, black curls. Hermione’s smile, Sirius’ laughter.
How could Hermione ever be so lucky?
She whispered the thought to him sometimes. When everyone had gone to bed, and the house was quiet, and they were both half-asleep, she murmured the words against her husband’s neck.
“I can’t believe I get to keep you.”
It was a bittersweet feeling, the reminder of how close she had come to not having him at all. Sirius pulled her tighter against him, like he always did. He kissed her softly, like he knew she needed. In moments like these, the impermanence spoke louder to Hermione than the stability of the life they’d build together; louder than their daughters, louder than their shining soulmarks; louder than the entwined beats of both their hearts. The only way to remind her that he was still there and not leaving was to hold on to her in every way he could until she forgot there was ever any other way of being, until she forgot there was ever an alternative.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled them over so that she was under him. He studied her for a moment, fingers tracing the growing laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. He had them, too, along with a handful of silver hairs Hermione loved to point out. We’re growing old together, she would say with delight, and Sirius thought about that now as he looked down at her. Age had firmed her face and she was even more beautiful than she used to be when he’d met her. Sirius had never thought that could be possible.
“I love you,” he said, smiling at her when she finally met his eyes. Hermione exhaled softly.
“Tell me this isn’t a dream,” she said, and Sirius shook his head.
“It’s not,” he said. “It’s not a dream, darling.” He leaned down and continued kissing her softly, eyes half-lidded, until Hermione finally relaxed against him, until she kissed him back like she remembered he was not leaving, her fingers running through his hair and so casually enslaving him with her touch. Sirius could never dream up that feeling even if he tried.
He loved her. He loved her, and he got to steal a whole life with her. He was the one who was lucky, who couldn’t believe he got to keep her. That Sirius had the chance to live, to actually live, and postpone death, at least for a little while…
He knew it was coming for him. He knew he couldn’t escape it forever.
But he got to choose, and between the minutiae of that choice, he lived a thousand lives. He made each second count.
He loved her, and he was happy.
It was more than enough. It was everything.