Intimate Transactions

“What’s that tattoo mean?” she asked, stuck on a runic symbol she didn’t recognize peeking out from above his collarbone. It struck with familiarity, but she couldn’t place it.

Sirius tilted his head, and then stretched his neckline to the side, fully revealing the tattoo. “This one?”

Hermione nodded.

His mouth sealed shut, lips pressed together, almost turned to a frown. After several beats of silence too many, he said, “Tattoos are intimate things, princess.”

[In which two lonely, traumatized people trade intimacies in an act of healing.]