Author's Notes
Hi everyone…. It's Saturday and therefore time for another update!
Thank you so much to champagneandliterature for all your alpha/beta work.
Also, we now have a Facebook group, come and join us at Phoenix of slytherin and Champagne and literature for sneak peaks, artwork and hopefully lots more… I will confess to it being a bit quiet in there this week due to real life craziness getting in the way on my part, but come and have a look anyway, (if you'd like to :-) ) we do have some plans lol!
I hope everyone is still enjoying the story and wondering who sent the notes…. There are no answers to that yet I'm afraid! Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll be back with another update next week! XXxx
Cupid's Arrows
Chapter 9 - Friendships and Transformations.
By Friday evening, Hermione had fully come to terms with the offensive notes she and Hannah had received. She had felt trapped inside a whirlwind of emotions all day. Hurt, embarrassment, shame, self-righteous anger, and protective fury had all chased themselves in circles inside her brain until she had finally reached acceptance, and then a burning curiosity to find out who had been behind the hostile acts. By the time she was marching back and forth in the corridor outside of the Room of Requirement for their weekly planned girl's night, she had settled on just one thing. She was going to find out who was behind the vile slurs and bring them to justice.
The notes' personal nature didn't seem to be bothering Theo in the slightest, other than keeping a protective eye on her and Draco. He seemed to be just as cheerful as usual. If Hermione had noticed anything different about him at all, it was the extra spark of defiance that now shone in his blue eyes. It was as if by raising his challenge to the world at large, he hoped to provoke a reaction from the note writer in return.
Draco was the complete opposite, however. It had taken him until mid-afternoon to stop avoiding everyone, including Hermione, and to start behaving normally again. She suspected that his change in attitude had resulted from Greg and Blaise cornering him after Transfiguration, but since Professor McGonagall had held her back to discuss an extra credit assignment, she had missed their entire conversation and therefore didn't know what had been said to lift his despair.
Hermione smiled, finding herself pleasantly surprised by what she had seen of Greg over the past two days. He didn't usually have a lot to say, but when he did speak, his words were thoughtfully chosen and intelligent. He also seemed to be one of the very few people that Draco truly listened to. When Greg told Draco to stop beating himself up about the notes, Draco not only took his words to heart but acted on them too.
She took a deep breath to ground herself back into the present, opened the now visible door, and stepped into the Room of Requirement. The layout inside was identical to how it had been the previous week. The divide between the two halves of the room was back, and the raucous shouts of laughter from the boy's side reminded her that she was rather late. She had lost track of time in the library while finishing her homework and had hurried back to find the common room almost deserted save for a large group of Ravenclaws in the corner. While stopping to reorganize her bulging book bag on a nearby table, she had overheard snippets of a whispered and rather incriminating conversation between two of Cho Chang's friends. Hermione had lingered out of sight for a while to listen further, and the girl's opinions had proved rather eye-opening. These particular girls hadn't been the ones who had left the notes, but they made it clear that they fully supported whoever had.
Hermione had just about managed to hold her temper back and to only hex them discreetly and she had smirked as she'd left the common room thoroughly pleased with her retaliation spellwork. She had jinxed the essays the girls had been working on to appear unreadable to any of their teachers. The ink would be perfectly visible to the two girls themselves so that they would hand their essays in as usual, but to the professor who tried to read them, they would appear as nothing more than blank sheets of parchment bearing the student's names.
She was still smiling in satisfaction as she hugged Ginny and the others hello and accepted a glass of prosecco from Pansy. "You're late, Miss G, and we need in-for-ma-tion from you." Ginny grinned, drawing the word out with an eyebrow wiggle. "Sit down and tell us what happened in the domes! We were distracted by the notes yesterday, but you can't escape any longer!"
Hermione grinned, she had been expecting this very question, and for once, she was more or less ready to discuss it. She sipped her drink, feeling the bubbles pop with a gentle fizz on her tongue as she looked up. Ginny, Pansy, Luna, Parvati, Lavender, Millie, Daphne, and Hannah were all gazing at her expectantly. "Why do I have to go first?" Hermione laughed, "I promise I will tell you, but what about some of you going first to ease me in? You're all much better at this than me, after all. How were all of your nights?"
"Well, Daph and myself didn't go, so we're out of the storytelling, I'm afraid. Although, I will tell you exactly what Harry and I got up to in his bed instead if you like?" Pansy volunteered. Ginny clapped her hands, and Lavender and Parvarti each gave a squeal of encouragement, and by the time Pansy was through with her vivid descriptions, Hermione needed a top up of prosecco to settle her shredded nerves.
Ginny's stories from her and Blaise's night in the domes were equally wild, although, slightly less eye watering. Hermione still found it a little uncomfortable to hear about Harry in such a sexual way, although some of Pansy's descriptions were causing her to look at him in a rather different light these days. Ginny felt the same way when it came to Ron. Millie closed her eyes and smiled shyly as she recounted losing her virginity to him under the stars. After the first few sentences, Ginny managed to unstick her fingers from her ears, unscrew her eyes, smile, and contribute, albeit much more modestly, to the conversation and by the end of Millie's dreamy storytelling, Ginny had even managed to look slightly proud of her brother's very gentlemanly handling of a rather delicate experience.
Hannah's story easily got the most oooohs and ahhhhs of the night. She told how Greg had brought his guitar along with them and had taught her how to play a few chords, then they had gone for a midnight walk under the glittering Milky Way and finally spent the night cuddled up snugly against each other in bed.
Lavender, by contrast, had discovered a serious problem with her and Dean's fledgling relationship. He had chosen that night to confess a huge secret which Lavender categorically refused to divulge but had resulted in them sitting up chatting until two in the morning and then falling asleep platonically next to each other. Hermione smiled in satisfaction, she would never say anything in the group without permission, but she guessed that Dean had told Lavender that he was gay. While this obviously presented a problem for Lavender from the game's romantic point of view it wasn't at all surprising. Hermione knew that it had long been rumored, and she was glad that Dean was finally coming to terms with his sexuality.
All heads turned to Luna and Parvarti next, but nobody got very far past Luna's benign smiles and Parvati's deep blushes, so after some gentle but totally ineffective probing, they all moved on. "Alright, Hermione." Pansy picked up a new bottle of prosecco, popped the cork, and topped off all of their glass as everyone turned back to Hermione. "Out with it, what happened, and which one did you shag?" she grinned wickedly as she paused, "or was it both of them?"
Hermione blushed and smiled. "Draco," she said, and the room exploded in excitable squeals.
"Tell us, tell us, tell us!" Ginny shuffled forwards in her seat, as did everyone else, and they all listened eagerly as Hermione recounted what had happened.
When she was finished, everyone in the room was smiling with satisfaction. "That sounds so perfect," Parvarti said dreamily, and Hermione nodded, feeling rather emotional, all of a sudden herself.
"So, I didn't ask any of you before because I wanted to find out for myself," she began rather haltingly, "and from my limited experience, the other night was absolutely perfect, but I'm guessing from what you've all said that Draco and Theo are both rather... umm... talented in that area?"
"Talented?!" Pansy screeched, "good grief, girl. If I didn't have Harry right now, I'd be madly jealous of you! Yes. They're both excellent indeed. It was your first time, tell me, did it hurt in any way? was anything awkward?"
"Nope. It was perfect." Hermione answered with a smile.
"There you go then."
Ginny nodded, "I'd say that Blaise is the best I've ever had, but Draco comes a close second for me." Ginny grinned. He's just so adorable. Everyone thinks he's this tough and heartless bad boy, and, in fact, he's a little sweetpea."
"Whereas everyone thinks Theo's a cheeky little sweetpea, and in fact, he's the one who's a tough, semi heartless bad boy." Pansy agreed with a laugh.
"Yes," Hermione agreed dreamily, "I think I had their personalities the wrong way round in my mind too." She took a deep breath and asked the question that she wouldn't have asked had she not been two and a half glasses of prosecco into the evening, "so what's it like to have Theo, you know, like that?"
"Amazing," Daphne said, smiling dreamily. "He's the best."
"Ah." Millie turned to look at Daphne in surprise, "so you've forgiven him for dumping Tracy, then have you?"
"What?" Hermione asked in concern, "When was he with Tracy?"
Millie frowned, "directly before this game. She's always liked him from afar, and I don't quite know what happened, but they got it together, and then this game came to light, and he dropped her like a stone. She was heartbroken for a while, but I think she's over it now. She's started seeing that Hufflepuff guy, Justin... somebody, and she seems happy with him now, so I guess we can just about forgive Theo for hurting her like that."
"Tracy and Theo would never have worked out long term anyway though," Daphne said, "She's too quiet for him, and he's too showy offy for her. Don't worry about it Hermione, it all happened well before you came along. We were cross with him over it because Tracy is a good friend, and he hurt her, but we're all good now." Daphne smoothed her long blonde hair back and fixed Hermione with her emerald green eyes. "I believe you wanted to know what he's like in bed?" Hermione tucked this latest and slightly alarming piece of information away to fully process later and nodded as Daphne smiled. "So…. it's quite possible for that boy to just talk you into an orgasm-"
"Oh, I know!" Hermione widened her eyes in shock at what she had let slip and clapped her hand over her mouth.
"And then," Pansy said as everyone laughed, "before you've come down from that, he'll just use his fingers or his tongue, and you'll be straight back up there again, and that's before you even get near his-"
"And before Draco even gets a look in, Merlin, if I had the two of them together, I think I'd just about die." Daphne finished, interrupting with a giggle and a blush.
"I practically did," Pansy admitted.
Ginny just smiled wickedly as she tossed her impossibly long hair back, "do you think partner swapping comes up as one of the rounds in this game? Or what about foursomes? Do you think Blaise would let me add those two into our-"
"Nooooooo!" Hermione shouted, and everyone laughed harder as Lavender topped up their glasses yet again. "Come on then, Ginny, I can't believe you've slept with Draco in the past, and I only found out about it last week. Spill the beans yourself, madam!" Hermione said as she tucked a leg underneath her bottom to listen as Ginny launched into yet another very lurid and descriptive tale of her and Draco's past encounters.
"Alright, you lot, this is becoming a habit now," Sirius said over the seemingly never ending roar of the floo. He grinned at Ron and Millicent, who had just landed in the kitchen as Remus put a handful of vials of hangover potion onto the scrubbed kitchen table and started pulling more food out of the fridge.
"You can't really complain though, Pads," Remus said mildly, "do you remember what you said to them all before they went back to school this September?"
"Remind me, Moony, I've been asleep since then, and I've probably forgotten."
"You told them to enjoy themselves this year. You said they should let their hair down and enjoy being young with no life threatening distractions for once. Now you're paying for that remark in hangover potions, bacon sandwiches, and first aid."
"I'll bring you some of our potion stash." Theo grinned from his seat at the table, "we've got plenty tucked away in our dorms."
"A sensible thing to keep on hand." Sirius nodded his approval as Harry and Pansy stumbled out of the floo and into the kitchen. Harry grabbed two vials of potion, passed one to Pansy, and they both downed them and sat down without a word. "How were your respective nights?"
Hermione blushed at the memory of the past evening's conversations, and Ginny smirked, "ours was very enlightening indeed. Wasn't it Miss G?"
"I'm not answering." Hermione covered her face in her hands, blushed even deeper, and groaned as Draco stroked her arm reassuringly, and Ginny wolf whistled.
"Any more awful notes?" Remus asked, looking rather pale as he put several pans on the stove.
"No. Although I did hear something interesting yesterday." Hermione recounted what she had overheard in the common room and how she had gotten back at the girls who had been gossiping, then turned to high five Pansy, who was looking significantly brighter now that her hangover potion was starting to work.
"Are you sure you were sorted into the right house, Hermione? That's a very sneaky hex. I'm proud of you." Millie said.
"Gryffindor's can be sneaky if we need to be too." Sirius asserted, ruffling Hermione's already untidy hair. He pulled out a chair and guided a still pale and unsteady looking Remus away from the cooker and pushed him down into it. "Well done, Kitten. Just make sure they don't find out who did it."
"That's the beauty of that particular hex," Draco said, also sounding rather proud while he looked uncertainly at Remus. "They can't find out who did it because they won't know that the parchment is hexed until they hand it in, and by then, it's far too late to know where and when it was done. Would you like a hand cooking, Ron?"
"Uh…. yes, please," Ron paused halfway through cracking eggs into the pan that Remus had abandoned, and turned to stare at Draco in surprise. Remus handed Draco the bread, and they both watched him put several slices into the toaster.
"Thank you. Otherwise, it would have fallen to Sirius to help, and it's never a good idea to let him near the cooking." Remus said with a nod of approval.
"That's a Black family trait, I'm afraid," Draco nodded, as Sirius sniffed in amusement and put a hand to Remus's forehead as if to take his temperature. "My mother is the same. Now happily, it's not a Malfoy one, say what you like about my Father, and I'd agree with most of it, but he's an excellent cook."
Hermione was glad that she wasn't the only one who snorted with laughter at that statement. She caught Ginny's eye, and her amusement only intensified. She knew they were both imagining the same thing, Lucius Malfoy with an apron on in the kitchen. It was rather a disconcerting image for that time in the morning. "Actually, I agree," Theo said with a grin, as Blaise and Pansy both nodded in confirmation. "As unexpected as it may sound, Lucius is an outstanding chef."
Sirius took a full minute to recover from that statement too. He nodded his thanks to Draco, put the butter on the side, and turned his attention back to Remus with a smile. "Are you okay, Remus?" Hermione frowned, running through moon cycles in her head, "You look a bit... peaky."
"It's the full moon tonight," Sirius answered stoically, and a visible ripple of tension passed through the kitchen. "Now look," Sirius stood up, his shoulders strong and his expression haughty, "we might as well get it all out in the open, mightn't we? It is the full moon, you all know what Remus is, and if you're all going to be coming round here more often, then you need to get used to hearing us talk about it. It's not a big deal to us, and if it is to you, well, there's the floo." He picked up the pot of floo powder and held it out defiantly as Remus stared intently at his hands.
To Hermione's surprise, Pansy nodded, and Theo held out his hand to Remus first. "Gotcha. Friends?" Theo asked.
Remus nodded, looking thoroughly shocked, and shook first Theo, then Draco, and then Blaise's hands. Once the boys were done, Ginny threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Hermione did the same, Millie smiled, and after a moment of uncertainty, Pansy offered him a hug too.
"Well, that's' that then." Sirius put down the pot of floo powder and looked around the room slightly less aggressively. "No more acting like silly buggers if one of us mentions it from now on, please."
"Thank you for that." Hermione heard Harry say, and she smiled at Pansy's answering nod. Although Pansy was still looking wary, she was trying her best, and Hermione was impressed with her commitment to Harry. Most pureblood children were brought up to fear and despise werewolves, and Pansy's new open mindedness was as welcome as it was surprising.
After they had all eaten and sat around idly chatting for an hour or so, Harry, Pansy, Ginny, Blaise, Ron, and Millie all floo'd back to Hogwarts in a somewhat panicked attempt to at least make a start on their mountains of homework. Hermione, Draco, and Theo opted to spend most of the remaining day at Grimmauld Place however. Draco, Hermione had discovered, was almost as diligent at studying as she was, and they had both completed all of their assignments with plenty of time to spare. In contrast, Theo simply didn't care about his schoolwork unless it was for one of the subjects he liked, namely Potions, Herbology, or Care of Magical Creatures. He frowned dismissively at the mention of the rest of his homework, shrugged off Hermione's worries, and accepted Sirius' offer of a walk into one of muggle London's parks.
The beautiful Autumn weather made her very glad that both he and Sirius had talked them all into going out. They spent a perfect afternoon kicking through piles of crunchy, fallen leaves and enjoying the last few rays of sunshine before the weather turned truly dreadful for the winter. Remus seemed to perk up in the sunshine too, and by the time they all returned home, he was feeling a little better. "I'm going to bed for a bit," he admitted once they were all settled around the table and warming their hands on hot mugs of cocoa, "I'll be having a difficult night, and I could do with the extra sleep right now. I'll' see you when it's all over. And," he paused, turning to Draco and Theo, "thank you both for the acceptance you showed me earlier. It means a lot."
"No problem." Theo grinned cheerfully, "you were the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher we ever had. I was sorry when you left."
Remus nodded once more, kissed Sirius tenderly, and left the kitchen looking touched. Sirius nodded his head, asking Theo to follow him, and they both left the room, leaving Hermione and Draco alone together.
"Sometimes, your group of friends amazes me." Draco smiled and took her hand, holding it tightly for a moment to still her as she stood up and started to gather the dirty plates and cups, "I'm trying, okay Hermione? I'm trying, and I'm not used to all of this," he gestured vaguely around the kitchen with his hand, "am I doing all right?"
Hermione's heart melted as she straddled his lap and bent down to kiss him, "Yes, Draco, you're doing more than all right. I promise." She kissed him again and smiled, "I loved the way you pitched in to help Ron cook breakfast earlier, and I love how you just accepted Remus for what he is. That can't have been easy for you."
Draco sighed, "neither thing was that hard. To be honest, I should have done it all years ago."
Hermione leaned down and inhaled the scent of his hair. "Better late than never, though, huh?" she asked, and he reached up to pull her into his kiss.
When they finally broke apart, they both pitched in to clear up the kitchen, and twenty minutes later, when they were finished, there was still no sign of Theo and Sirius. Slightly suspicious as to what they were up to, Hermione led Draco through the house to look for them. There was no sign of them anywhere, though, and she was starting to get concerned when Draco pushed the back door open to reveal them both sitting on the small patio, each with a half-drunk glass of firewhisky and a lit cigarette in their hands.
Hermione opened her mouth in surprise, but Draco beat her to it, "I thought you'd given that up!" he said accusingly.
Theo looked at him guiltily as he exhaled, "Did you?"
"That was what you told me,"
"That's not quite what I said," Theo blinked, and Sirius conjured two more whiskey glasses with an amused smirk. He silently poured Draco a drink and stopped when Hermione held her hand up to decline his offer. "You told me that I should give up, and I didn't disagree. That's not quite the same as actually doing it, though."
Draco just grunted as he sat down beside them and sipped from his glass. He pulled Hermione onto his knee as she glared at Sirius, "you should give up too, and while we're on the subject of vices all three of you could probably do with new livers, I don't know how you all drink so much either!"
In response, Sirius took a long drag of his cigarette and blew smoke into the air away from her. He held her gaze with a twinkle of mischief in his grey eyes, "wasn't it three hangover potions that you've had in the last three weeks yourself, Kitten? And anyway, drinking is a well known talent of mine. It comes from trying to match Remus drink for drink. Not many people can keep up with a werewolf's metabolism."
"But that doesn't make it a good talent to have!" she scowled. The fact that he was right about her own recent drinking habits did nothing to settle her irritation.
He merely tipped his glass to her as she huffed "I do love it when you're all feisty, Kitten. But jokes aside, it's likely to be a difficult evening, so I'll tuck your dire warnings away and take heed of them tomorrow if that's okay."
"Is that so you can just ignore them tomorrow instead of today?" she glared at him playfully as her grumpiness subsided, and he grinned.
"Absolutely right."
"On that note, and before I get myself into any more trouble, we should probably leave you to it. Let's get back to Hogwarts, shall we?" Theo chuckled at Hermione's renewed scowl and Sirius's attempted look of innocence as he finished his cigarette and vanished the end.
"Is there anything you need for tonight?" Draco asked as they all stood up and drained their glasses.
"No. But thank you for the offer." Sirius said, shaking Theo and Draco's hands and then turning to hug Hermione, "your support means a lot to both of us. For the record, our floo is always open to all three of you, this evening and future full moons aside, though."
Draco and Theo both nodded their thanks, and they all headed back inside to finally make their way back through the floo to Hogwarts.