Lunar Embrace - Twenty First Chapter
So, Frail Wings the sequel to Suspending Consiousness is up. (darker fic/series with Barty/Hermione for those that may not already know) Okay, enough with this weird newsletter stuff, Story Time!
"By Merlin, why would you seek to aggravate Snape?" McGonagall said while setting a quill aside, looking up from the half-marked test on her desk to the students infront of her. "You know he has it in for you in particular Potter, and Granger, did you have to talk back?" Yes. "As well as miss your first class and half of Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Okay, not that. Hermione blamed Barty for that. "Potter, detention this weekend, my office. You are dismissed."
She bit her lip as Harry turned and walked from the room, catching a scowl across his face before he went out of the door that closed behind him. With it shut now she started to speak, "Professor-"
"How come you weren't at your classes this morning? You've never missed class before. What could possibly be more important?" McGonagall asked with a deep frown etched on to her face.
"My parents," Hermione said quickly, remembering what she had told her friend. It was better than the truth anyway-oh. That's what it had meant when he said that. The truth could be good for one person to know but bad for another. But why would it be bad for her to know how he got out of Azkaban? She sighed, whatever the reason she didn't have time to think about it right now. "I was staying with them the other night like I always do after being out with Blaise for the day and this morning they saw the document detailing the law and... basically all hell broke loose. My mum got upset when I told her about the marriage law before but this time she completely flipped out and my dad wasn't much help in the matter either. He wasn't actually there when I told my mother so he heard about it first from her rather than me," she took a breath, hating herself for the card she was about to pull but she couldn't very well tell McGonagall that the reason she was late today was because she had been with Bartemius Crouch Junior. This woman knew he wasn't a reformed Death Eater like The Prophet was trying to make him out to be. Like the Ministry wanted everybody to believe. "I'm sorry Professor, I just wasn't paying attention to the time and-"
"It's okay," her gut twisted at how easily those words had worked. "This new law has been hard on everyone. I just hope all the students in my House keep getting lucky with their matches. Obviously it's worked out well for you and Blaise so far. He's a decent Slytherin," My match isn't a Slytherin though. He was sorted into Ravenclaw when he attended this school and he grew to be a follower of Voldemort. He's the man that brought him back, along with the stupid rat. She found herself wondering what McGonagall would say if she knew the truth. Calling him decent was likely to be the last on the list. Murderer, lunatic, manipulative acting bastard. Those all sounded like things that would be on top of her list. Especially with the events of fourth year... "Doesn't cause too much trouble, even if he is friends with Malfoy."
Those stupid pranks Malfoy pulled couldn't come close to what her husband had done. The fact that McGonagall was basically comparing Barty to Malfoy made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, her face neutral on that matter. "I'm really sorry Professor-" Hermione said as she grabbed her bag of books, moving the strap over her shoulder. The skin there still seemed to tingle from all the kisses Barty had laid on it.
"Hermione," she frowned at the tone of voice, looking back up at her Professor who let out a sigh, "I still need you to come in for detention," McGonagall paused as if considering her next words, "Be in my office with Potter this weekend."
Her heart felt like it had just jumped straight from her chest into her throat. "W-weekend?" she couldn't do that. It was impossible t-
"The law requires for you to simply be in the same vicinity as your match for three days," Three days? It was two. The weekend. She didn't see her match until the weekend and if she didn't fill the requirements of the law they would... they would... "I know this will cut into the usual time you two have aside from Hogwarts-" He isn't in Hogwarts! She was tempted to scream if her voice wasn't still recovering from this morning. If it wouldn't mess up everything she had set up to make sure no one knew that little fact. "You'll just have to cancel whatever plans you made for this week-" Cancel what? A picnic in Grand Central Park? Wherever the fuck that was. She didn't have anything to cancel! The law certainly wasn't going to allow her to put off her weekly just because she got detention! "I'm sure Blaise will understand-" Blood pounded in her ears, drowning out the words. Her vision seemed to fold in on itself as her breath came fast, "G-an-e-?" McGonagall must have raised her voice since some of it filtered through, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. Her head swam, seeing black dots that kept growing larger... and then there was pain shooting up her arm.
/ / /
"Miss Granger!"
The shout from inside the office made Harry turn to the door reaching out to open it when McGonagall appeared in the doorway, the slam of the door connecting with the stone wall filling the classroom. "Professor?" Harry turned to look into the office spotting Hermione's body on the floor.
"Potter, get out of the way. I'm taking Granger to the infirmary."
"What happened?" Harry asked as McGonagall waved her want to levitate Hermione off of the ground. "Professor?" he pressed, taking a step forward when she didn't say anything immediately.
McGonagall frowned, looking to him, "She passed out. Now get out of the way, Potter."
He blinked, stepping back. "Pomfrey is out today though-" How was taking Hermione to the infirmary going to help her then?
"The school sent for a nurse at Saint Mugos. Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Barely a second later the professor was out the door with his levitated friend. Harry didn't hesitate to get out of the room and track down Ginny and Ron to tell them what had happened.
/ / /
It was dark. If she could see she imagined it would just be shadows. Unless it was just some sort of eternal darkness with not even a flicker of light-
A throb in her shoulder cut through her thoughts and she winced, eyes opening a moment later. Even so she didn't see anything for a couple seconds, dark blotches across her vision shrunk down, clearing slowly so she could see gray stone along with beds opposite of her against an opposing wall. They had rails on the sides... the infirmary. What was she doing here?
"Oh, you're up." A familiar, too cheerful voice came from her right, "Just staying laying down for now as I apply the balm. It might sting a bit but otherwise you shouldn't feel much besides being a little sore from that fall you took."
"Fall?" Hermione turned her head to the left, noticing her school robe slung over one of the chairs. How the heck had she gotten here? She didn't remember falling, just her vision going black, her heart beating too loud in her ears, and something else. Something about...
"You passed out back in McGonagall's office. From what she told me you seem to have gone into a panic attack and blacked out because of it." The nurse speaking made her thoughts shatter and she struggled for a moment to regain them before giving up. Her head hurt too much to think about it right now. "When you fell though you hit your head," That certainly explained the pounding in her skull. "You landed on your shoulder mostly so that's going to be sore for a few days and you have some bruising along your arm as well. It'll go away in time."
There was a soft pop to her right as a container was opened and Hermione turned her head to look at the woman, blinking when she recognized her. "Mrs. Vandis?" What was her nurse doing in Hogwarts?
"Just stay still for a moment," Hermione flinched almost right after the last word left the medi-witch. A warm substance was being rubbed into her shoulder, sending out little stinging sensations whenever it was moved around. Thankfully they lessened after each time until she didn't even feel it any longer. The feeling returned though when she felt the balm rubbed along her arm as well in smaller doses. "There. That wasn't too bad was it, Cupcake?"
She opened her mouth to say it hadn't been that bad but stopped to stare at the nurse. Did she just call her that? Or was she just not hearing her correctly? Though if that was the case she could only be calling her one other thing, "Don't call me that."
Mrs. Vandis just smiled at the sharp tone in her voice. "What? Cupcake? Or Cr-" Hermione's eyes widened, hands going up to cover her mouth but the nurse stepped back with a laugh. "I got the memo from the Ministry. Don't worry the only other person in here is a student and they're fast asleep, knock-out potion for their own good. The patient was moving too much when they needed to be lying down and healing." She took a moment to put the cap back on the container holding the rest of the stinging balm inside.
Hermione took it as her chance to ask, "Why are you calling me that? It's Granger to you."
"No," Mrs. Vandis set the container aside, "It's Granger to everyone here and the general public. Now I understand why you made the decision considering some of the supposed, 'scandals' that the Daily Prophet is writing about and what they would do with your situatuion if they heard about it. But, I'm not going to call you by a name that you don't use anymore. And since I can't call you by your last name, and don't know you well enough to use your first name, you are, Cupcake, to me." Bloody perfect.
She frowned looking back to her robe. "Can I go now?"
"Not yet, I want you to stay here for a couple hours and if you do get up I would suggest not doing it too fast. Your friends are waiting outside and want to come in to see you. Apparently it's important. So, I'll let them come in but you can't be trying to escape with them, okay?"
Hermione sighed, "Fine." her arm was sore anyways, pushing herself up with it would probably just result in more pain and she didn't need to be getting a headrush like the nurse had mentioned.
"Great!" Vandis started to turn but then looked back over her shoulder at Hermione, "One more thing, keep the sleeve up as the solution sets in or else it'll get your shirt sticky." She glanced down to mentioned sleeve as heels tapped across the wood and she could hear a door open.
"Hermione," she glanced towards the door to see Harry, Ron, and Ginny running over to her bedside. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Just some bruising." Hermione pushed herself up with her uninjured arm so she was sitting with her back against pillows instead of lying down, to convince her friends further. "Mrs. Vandis said you had something important to tell me?"
"Yeah, I was waiting for you to come out of McGonagall's office before when she gave both of us detention," from his frown he obviously didn't think they should have gotten detention, "Slughorn wants the both of us to come to his Slug Club meeting next week, it's during a school day so I said you should be able to make it."
Well, atleast Slughorn was considerate when it came to her time with her match on the weekends, unlike McGonagall. Her fingers curled into the white sheets beneath them at the reminder that she had detention. She was going to need to get around that somehow. "I'll be there," she replied, wondering if she still would have been invited if she had missed his class. "You should leave now, or else Mrs. Vandis will probably kick you out."
"When will you be out?" Ginny asked, apparently able to squeeze a word in now that Harry had stopped talking.
"In a few hours I think. I'm not in bad shape so I should be down in the hall for dinner."
"Okay, get better."
"I will." Hermione replied.
"Yeah, you rest up and we'll see about getting on McGonagall's good side." Ron said, then hurried as if to clarify, "Not for you to go see Blaise this weekend-"
"Ron!" Ginny practically yelled, punching her brother in the process, "Don't be rude and get that stick out of your ass."
"Ow! You're the one with a stick up their ass." Ron dodged another punch as he continued, "I'm just saying the Slytherins got out of their detention early over that boggart incident. There's no reason you can't get out early over a little back talk and skipped classes."
Hermione smiled slightly, glad Ron wasn't taking another punch at her supposed match. "Thanks."
"Just you wait. You'll probably only be in there for an hour when I'm done with the professor."
"Shut up Ron. You'll make her stay longer." Ginny said, grabbing his arm and Hermione watched the threee walk out with Ron protesting that he could to shorten the time instead of lengthening it.