A little short ficlet for the winner of the "guessing-game" as I've dubbed it during chapter 3 of LWL.
I feel that I may have lost a bit of Gabriel in it, but over all I'm pleased with it.
Enjoy!
. ... .. .
"No."
As Hermione uttered the word, Gabriel's eyes lit up with a fire that wasn't actually new at all.
She was royally screwed.
Merlin, why did she follow this arch-pain-in-her-arse-angel? She could be at home, reading, cuddling with Ron or whoever she would have eventually begun dating after the war, but no. Gabriel had to show up using magic with no bounds and just had to offer to teach her.
It was absurd, his words – she knows this. It was the fancy of a half-mad, lonely little girl who had just killed three people, maybe more, a few hours before. If Harry knew just how irresponsible she was being, he'd laugh at her, just like everyone else who knew her would.
Not that Hermione could blame them for their prospective laughter. It's bloody risible.
Ha ha ha, such a stupid girl; doesn't she know anything outside of her silly little books? Does she not know of the world out there; does she not know that an outstanding vocabulary and trivia facts and teachers taken with her endless efforts for perfection will not help her when the cards are dealt and the chips down?
Of course, she knew that. She is Hermione Jean Granger, she is not a feel, she knew and understood and acknowledged the terror that stalked, leered, in the hollowing back of her mind, waiting to rip her apart and eat what leaked from the gashes. She knew that the fear, if she let it, would rip her little articulate throat right out.
Dear God – she says god, because now that she's met Gabriel, God is an easier concept to believe in – how could Hermione not know the disgusting face of her tormentor.
But she digresses.
Allow her to couch her choices upon clichés. She will begin thusly:
Once upon a time, a princess with beautiful golden curls – not a wild mess of brown bushiness that revolted against the hairbrush at every opportunity – and lovely blue eyes the color of a to ocean at twilight – must she clarify that they were certainly not brown – met a handsome prince. The two fell deeply in love; there were no wicked step mothers or evil witches, but there were plenty of the average, wart-less, overly human ones; there were not any talking rabbits, but there were several people who turn into rabbits. And then the handsome prince… What was the handsome prince thinking? Stupid bugger of a handsome prince; she would have lopped off his head already if it wasn't so handsome; she'd…
Not very convincing, is she?
Let's try another cliché. "It all began," is how she recalls one going. Well here she goes; one more try.
It all began at the climax; the end of the, their, story, or as she was assured by the portrait of her, admittedly, Machiavellian headmaster.
This is Hermione standing above the carnage of the past few hours – her side is bleeding dangerously and heavily and so is the gash above her right eye, but it is okay because the blood in her right eye makes it increasingly impossible to see. This is kind of pain is good, wonderful, because having a single working eye makes it harder for her to see the corpses of her enemies and friends alike.
It's alright with her, though, it really it.
With her blurring eyesight she takes in the sight of the dust surrounding the; the school is in ruins. The motes of grime and filth shimmer in the light of the sun, or maybe it's the moon. The stars would be nice; something to verify how long this has last, how much life this had robbed her of. She wants to see something beautiful, something fucking magnificent; something that will validate her life and her sacrifice. She wants something to counteract all the death and the pain and all the lovely things she has and will be giving up when she finally leaves this blood coated battle field.
She thinks, in more than one way, that she may be dead and in some morbid sort of way it that would be alright with her.
If she is in fact dead, Hermione thinks, she needs for someone to get something more than galleons for her burial - which they won't be getting anyway, she remembers suddenly, because her will specifies a pyre rather than a classic funeral.
She searches frantically past the disgusting sight of the gritty particles that lodge themselves everywhere – her eyes, nose, mouth, teeth and lungs – because her brain is proclaiming, as clear as angels sing, muddled and she catches bits and pieces, but the symphonies of thoughts ultimately fall flat.
Hermione Jean Granger is better than this.
This is the point in the story that she walks, stumbles, from her perch in one of the last standing towers of the castle and runs straight into an angel.
For an angel he was rather plain looking, he is not the perfect paintings hung in museums or the beloved cherubs, Hermione's mother liked to hang around their home during the Christmas holiday. He didn't stand much higher than her in stature with slicked back brown tresses, a mischievous smile and an obviously fake, handlebar mustache.
She liked his eyes: a mess of green and gold kept inside within a thin ring of dark brown; they were gorgeous, not that she'd ever admit that to him. He'd never let her live that down.
Again, she digresses.
The angel instead of taking her to heaven – as it turns out she was, in fact, not dead; he was just bored. He slips an arm around her middle and says, "I've always did love knee-socks." Before popping them to a tropical island where Hermione is ultimately left without her blood-soaked clothing in favor of an equally red bikini top and hula skirt.
Needless to say, she had hexed him with every bit of wandless magic.
Regardless, how could she say no to learning to break the laws of magic itself; the simple answer? She couldn't.
So, here she is.
"You cannot be serious on zapping us into Twilight," Hermione snapped, her lip twisting upwards. Merlin, she hated that franchise, so very much.
"No us," Gabriel quirked his lips upwards as he slipped his arm and by extension the transparent wing like manifestation of his grace, around her shoulder. "I was thinking of zapping in you."
Hermione suppressed a shiver; if it was about the disturbing idea of the pleasant feeling she got as his grace brushed over her own magic, she wasn't quite ready to know. Instead of focusing on the incredible feeling of his power, Hermione turned her head to look, well glare, at him.
"While I'll admit, it'd be nice to show those mockeries what real power is, I'm much more comfortable in your arms than say… Edward or Jasper," she replied as she slipped her own arm behind his back, ghosting her fingers over the smaller feathers that sat around where the wing met his back.
Dear God, she liked the jealous glint that passed through his eyes.
Leaning forward, Hermione placed a chaste kiss against his nose, "If you so much as attempt whatever half baked plan you're forming, I will hex off your bits permanently."