I'm glad my Ron and Hermione aren't TOO OC for you guys! :) Thanx for reading!
Chapter 4: Crucial Changes
'He'll Never give up now....' Harry's words still echoed as I woke up, I'd been a bit nervous about them, that night after he'd said them, expecting to see Ron bright and early the next morning. But I didn't, I didn't see him the day after the wedding, or the day after that, or after that, and eventually the fear of seeing him seeped out of my memory the way water seeps out of cupped hands. All that remained was the voice, Harry's voice, echoing still as a warning.
"You have to come, there playing tonight, and I know that if your with us then they'll let us backstage," That was the first thing Nicole said to me when I answered my phone.
"I can't," I said, for once thankful that my brother and Lila were coming home that evening, and that my mother had made me promise I'd take them for dinner, because she and my father were obligated to a business meeting and couldn't make it.
"Don't give me that crap, you know you can, and you are, I don't care if you think the lead singer who was hitting on you is a perv, he's the lead singer of the MORADERS!"
"Marauders," I corrected once again out of habit, luckily Nicole was too overcome by her own thoughts to hear the correction and question it. "No, really Nicole, I wish I could, but I promised I'd go with my brother and Lila out to dinner tonight."
"What about afterwards?" Nicole was starting to sound desperate, her master plan wasn't working.
"They're getting in around nine o'clock. By the time we eat and talk about all the stuff they did, and are going to do, it'll be about eleven-"
"That's not too late!" Nicole jumped in.
"It is if you have to work at six o'clock the next morning all the way until noon," I could here Nicole on the other end sighing exaggeratedly, and thinking up her next argument.
"Alright... But can you give me his number? The lead singer?"
"Maybe, look, I have to get ready for work right now, so I'll talk to you later. Tell the others I won't be able to make it,"
"I don't have to tell them, you never make it to the club anyways," Nicole said sourly, before muttering bye and hanging up with a "click"
I yanked on my uniform, a white button up, with a red vest over it with "Never Ending Cup," embroidered of a little picture of a teacup, and knee-length black skirt. I yanked my hair up into a ponytail, and then, done what I'd been trying to do the past four and a half days and tried to wash that stupid phone number off my hand. I figured it was jinxed or something, but it was unusual that I couldn't find a spell to get it off.
"I'm leaving Mum," I shouted as I grabbed my car keys and went out into the garage.
~
Work was slow at the Never Ending Cup. I spent most the time sitting in the back with Nell, a forty year-old actress wannabe, and Roy, the cook, who was thirty and flirted with everyone, despite age.
"Customer out front," Roy said as Nell and I talked about the newest flick at the cinema.
"I'll take it," I said to Nell getting up and walking out front. The first thing I saw was the baseball cap. I sighed, at least it wasn't him. I stepped forward asking in the typical over cheery voice,
"Can I help you?" Only to look at what was under that hat, and nearly get sick. "Oh it's you," My voice dropped, from overly cheery, to overly annoyed. He grinned wildly, something I was getting quite used to.
"Harry told me he saw you come out of here in uniform," He said grinning, "Love a women in a uniform," I glared at him. "Harry works at the gas station right next to this place, he just started yesterday," He explained.
"Good for him," I mumbled monotonely.
"I'm looking to get a job too, but there not hiring here, I already asked. So I'm thinking the one-hour-photo place next door,"
"Does this visit have a point?" I broke in sharply.
"I want you to come see us tonight, we're performing at the under club-"
"I can't,"
"Hermione, please, look, I just want to talk," His smile was gone and now he had a serious look on his face.
"No seriously, my brother and his wife are getting back tonight, I promised I'd take them to dinner," I stated matter-of-factly.
"What about afterwards?"
"It'll go pretty late, and I have to work tomorrow morning-"
"Hermione, we miss you, Harry and I both do, why don't you call?" I was getting the guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Like I was betraying my best friends. But then I reminded myself he didn't want to see me as a best friend, he had other things in mind.
"I'm not supposed to talk to friends while I'm working," I said after a second. He rolled his eyes and took off the baseball cap, which I noticed said "Texas" on the front.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," He said forcing back one of those smiles waving with the tips of his fingers and walking out the door with that stupid baseball hat swinging from his hand.
~
"Really it's all been just so perfect, first the wedding was dreamlike and then the honeymoon," Lila gave my brother a sidelong glance that made my stomach turn. "Of course that song thing was a little stain, but you can't have anything perfect can you?"
I stared at her. song thing? Was she talking about THE song? Or just the music in general. I suddenly felt strangely defensive.
"What music thing?" Ethan cleared his throat loudly with panicked look on his face as Lila replied.
"Well, I mean you getting so worked up over that song, not that it's your fault, I mean, I knew it was written for you when I chose it, but I didn't think you were so emotional about it." I choked on my ice water.
"Emotional?" I asked.
"Well, you have to admit, it was a bit childish to run out like that, I mean, honestly," I know she didn't mean for it to sound so arrogant, but I couldn't help how mad she was making me.
"But we don't blame you," Ethan put in quickly. I looked at him, shocked.
"You don't BLAME me?" I sputtered.
"Well, running out was selfish, especially on our wedding day. But we're not mad at you, I guess that's what we're trying to say," Lila was grinning as if she were the bloody good Samaritan.
"It was selfish of ME to get a little shaken up, because you used MY song, the only thing my real father ever left me?" I was getting a little loud at this point and breathing rabidly.
"Well, Hermione, really, it's not like it's really YOUR song," Lila said as if I were some sort of mistaken child.
"It is! It IS MY SONG!" I yelled, "He wrote it for ME!"
"Hermione," Ethan said grabbing my hand as I tried to stand up.
"Don't touch me!" I yelled ripping my hand away. "You betrayed me, I told you how much that song meant to me! You were the only one I ever told! I haven't even told my best friends!"
"Hermione, I'm sorry, but someday your going to have to face up to the fact that other people listen to it too," Ethan's voice was calm and steady in an infuriating way.
"What the hell happened to you?" I asked angrily, "Since when did you become Mr. Wisdom? Since when did the wishes of your slut become more important than your sister?" I was being entirely unfair at this point and I knew it, but I couldn't help but feel totally betrayed. Ethan knew about the closet nights, he had come into my room once when I was in the closet and I had told him the whole thing, he was the only one, the only one that knew. The only one I had told about You-Know-Who, the only one I had told about my life of people constantly letting me down, of the paranoia that not only were everyone around me who claimed they loved me letting me down, but that I was letting myself down. He was the only one that agreed with my views on love, the only one who had promised themselves never to get involved with anyone seriously, ever.
That had, of course changed after the first wedding, the love part, that it, but everything else had stayed the same, he had protected me from my doubts, from the haunting of the song. And now, he too had let me down, my last hope.
~
I had yelled a whole bunch of stuff about how they were going to break-up in a few months anyways, and how he had betrayed me for a three-month-fling, and a bunch of other foul things. And now, now I was at the under club, and I was drinking.
The others didn't even know I was there, Charlotte, Nicole and Lane. I had gone straight to the bar, gotten six drinks, for my "friends" and then taken them back to the very corner table.
I was about halfway through the fifth one when I saw her. The girl that had come in here after fleeing from her past school two days before, the girl whose life had been shattered, the girl who had seen death in many sick and disgusting ways, the girl that was corrupt and had no faith left in anything. I saw her walking through the door and drowning her cold memories in drinks.
I could feel the hot sting behind my eyes. I didn't want to be that girl again, I watched as the club started to empty out, watching the clichés, the groups of giggly girls just old enough to get in, the typical womanizer with several girls dressing his arms, the old drunks who stumbled in from work and stumbled in from being soused. I watched as my own friends left wiping their foreheads after lots of dancing, and comparing who had the best luck. I got up after the fifth one, feeling lightheaded. I stumbled through the crowd feeling as though I were in some parallel universe where everything moved sporadically at strange instances.
I ran headlong into a large man with a burly look about him. He grabbed me looking down at me with two heads and a amused look on his faces.
"Well 'ello little la-deee," He slurred pulling me towards him and letting his hands slide down my back. I tried aimlessly to pull away, or step on his foot or something, but my aim, was off and I came closer o kicking myself then actually hitting him. Finally I grabbed my wand from my pocket muttering a quick stun, and then waking him up again so as not to draw notice, but we did draw notice.
"Bitch!" He screeched. And I could seeing Leo, the security guard that normally handled the door come towards us.
"What's going on?" He asked threateningly.
"This bitch punched me or something," The burly man slurred glaring at me.
"That true?" Leo asked, grabbing onto my arm as if to restrain me. I looked up at him to drunk to say anything of sense, as burly man showed Leo the bruise growing on his cheek. "Looks like we're going to have to take you in for fighting-" Leo started but was cut off when a low, and worried voice called:
"Louisa! Louisa!" Ron broke through the crowd, cowboy hat on head and hugged me to him whispering: "Just play along," In my ear before letting me go. "What's going on officer?" He asked in his artificial twang.
"Well, looks as though this young lady got into a fight with this man," Leo explained. Ron contorted his worried expression into one of shock and disbelief.
"I don't believe it! My Sweet little wife Louisa? Brawling the night of our honeymoon? Why she wouldn't hurt a dern fly on one o' our horses backs," He twanged proudly. "If you ask me this man here's got the wrong woman, maybe one two many drinks." Leo considered this looking at burly man's, red face, and drooling mouth.
"Suppose so, sorry about the inconvenience," He muttered Ron nodded.
"No problem, sir, just doin' yer job," Ron said tipping his hat, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the bar with him. I yanked away once we were out the door and started walking as quickly as I could.
"Hermione! Come on, I saved your ass!" Ron called after me. I could hear him following me and I tried to pick up the pace, leaving me hitting the pavement with a "thump!" and a whimper.
I was sobbing, and I couldn't help it. All the thoughts of the night rushed into each other in my head like a massive car crash. Ethan letting me down, me letting me down. The clichés that I never fit into. The friend I had deserted. Everything.
"Shhhh," Came the low hiss in front of me. I looked up and all I saw were two blue eyes looking back, two blue eyes reflecting everything I needed, sympathy, stability, hope, kindness... and love.
~
I woke up with a lump in my back, I figured I was in my closet and it was a shoe, that had happened before, I reached underneath my back and yanked the hard think out, it was a shoe, but it wasn't mine. I sat up straight looking around me, the room was dim, but even in the dim light I could see that it was extremely messy. The shoe was large, like a man's shoe. And then I heard the voice, a long low voice:
'This lullaby
Just a simple run of chords
Hear it
lying here in this spare room
I will let you down
But this lullaby plays on...'
A memory sunk into my mind, I was sitting there on the curb crying, sobbing, thinking of everything and then I had looked up into those eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. One of us had made the move, one of us had reached out and touched the other one, and embraced the other one, one of us had done it, and I had tried to clamp off my memory, afraid to find out who it was. Afraid to see if he had taken advantage of me in my drunken state, or if I had given in.
The memory wouldn't stop though, and I watched as I looked into those eyes and then leaned forward laying my head against that strong chest. I had done it. He hadn't touched me until I had done it.
I put my head in my hands. Not believing that I had given in, that I had let him comfort me when I was vulnerable. I looked down under the sheets, seeing that apparently, that was all he had done, comforted me, I mean. It was still too much. Being in debt to someone it the worst place to be in my opinion. And this was even worse, considering there was a good chance I had puked on his at some point the night before. I got up quickly, knowing I had to get out before he came in to see if I was up. I ran to the window, where a large collection of snow globes were lined up. Seriously who over the age of ten collects snow globes? I knocked them off the windowsill, popping the screen out of the window. I was about to jump when I got that guilty pang in my stomach. I had to do something. I got down from the window and went over to the bed, first pulling the blankets down and ridding the bed of two miss-match socks, a guitar pick, a chocolate frog wrapper, and a tennis ball, and then pulling the blankets back up and making the bed hotel style.
It was a bit tacky, but the best I could do considering that now I could here them talking in the next room over and the name "Hermione" had been used more hen three times. I grabbed the cell phone off of the table and went to the window.
I nervously perched on the sill, jumped out, and ran down the street non-stop until I was out of sight of the tiny shack-like house, then I pulled out the phone and called Charlotte, who came to pick me up.
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Yay! 7 reviews! I'm glad you guys like the story even if I haven't given you all of Hermione's background yet. More of that will come later, I promise!
Chapter 4: Crucial Changes
'He'll Never give up now....' Harry's words still echoed as I woke up, I'd been a bit nervous about them, that night after he'd said them, expecting to see Ron bright and early the next morning. But I didn't, I didn't see him the day after the wedding, or the day after that, or after that, and eventually the fear of seeing him seeped out of my memory the way water seeps out of cupped hands. All that remained was the voice, Harry's voice, echoing still as a warning.
"You have to come, there playing tonight, and I know that if your with us then they'll let us backstage," That was the first thing Nicole said to me when I answered my phone.
"I can't," I said, for once thankful that my brother and Lila were coming home that evening, and that my mother had made me promise I'd take them for dinner, because she and my father were obligated to a business meeting and couldn't make it.
"Don't give me that crap, you know you can, and you are, I don't care if you think the lead singer who was hitting on you is a perv, he's the lead singer of the MORADERS!"
"Marauders," I corrected once again out of habit, luckily Nicole was too overcome by her own thoughts to hear the correction and question it. "No, really Nicole, I wish I could, but I promised I'd go with my brother and Lila out to dinner tonight."
"What about afterwards?" Nicole was starting to sound desperate, her master plan wasn't working.
"They're getting in around nine o'clock. By the time we eat and talk about all the stuff they did, and are going to do, it'll be about eleven-"
"That's not too late!" Nicole jumped in.
"It is if you have to work at six o'clock the next morning all the way until noon," I could here Nicole on the other end sighing exaggeratedly, and thinking up her next argument.
"Alright... But can you give me his number? The lead singer?"
"Maybe, look, I have to get ready for work right now, so I'll talk to you later. Tell the others I won't be able to make it,"
"I don't have to tell them, you never make it to the club anyways," Nicole said sourly, before muttering bye and hanging up with a "click"
I yanked on my uniform, a white button up, with a red vest over it with "Never Ending Cup," embroidered of a little picture of a teacup, and knee-length black skirt. I yanked my hair up into a ponytail, and then, done what I'd been trying to do the past four and a half days and tried to wash that stupid phone number off my hand. I figured it was jinxed or something, but it was unusual that I couldn't find a spell to get it off.
"I'm leaving Mum," I shouted as I grabbed my car keys and went out into the garage.
~
Work was slow at the Never Ending Cup. I spent most the time sitting in the back with Nell, a forty year-old actress wannabe, and Roy, the cook, who was thirty and flirted with everyone, despite age.
"Customer out front," Roy said as Nell and I talked about the newest flick at the cinema.
"I'll take it," I said to Nell getting up and walking out front. The first thing I saw was the baseball cap. I sighed, at least it wasn't him. I stepped forward asking in the typical over cheery voice,
"Can I help you?" Only to look at what was under that hat, and nearly get sick. "Oh it's you," My voice dropped, from overly cheery, to overly annoyed. He grinned wildly, something I was getting quite used to.
"Harry told me he saw you come out of here in uniform," He said grinning, "Love a women in a uniform," I glared at him. "Harry works at the gas station right next to this place, he just started yesterday," He explained.
"Good for him," I mumbled monotonely.
"I'm looking to get a job too, but there not hiring here, I already asked. So I'm thinking the one-hour-photo place next door,"
"Does this visit have a point?" I broke in sharply.
"I want you to come see us tonight, we're performing at the under club-"
"I can't,"
"Hermione, please, look, I just want to talk," His smile was gone and now he had a serious look on his face.
"No seriously, my brother and his wife are getting back tonight, I promised I'd take them to dinner," I stated matter-of-factly.
"What about afterwards?"
"It'll go pretty late, and I have to work tomorrow morning-"
"Hermione, we miss you, Harry and I both do, why don't you call?" I was getting the guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Like I was betraying my best friends. But then I reminded myself he didn't want to see me as a best friend, he had other things in mind.
"I'm not supposed to talk to friends while I'm working," I said after a second. He rolled his eyes and took off the baseball cap, which I noticed said "Texas" on the front.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," He said forcing back one of those smiles waving with the tips of his fingers and walking out the door with that stupid baseball hat swinging from his hand.
~
"Really it's all been just so perfect, first the wedding was dreamlike and then the honeymoon," Lila gave my brother a sidelong glance that made my stomach turn. "Of course that song thing was a little stain, but you can't have anything perfect can you?"
I stared at her. song thing? Was she talking about THE song? Or just the music in general. I suddenly felt strangely defensive.
"What music thing?" Ethan cleared his throat loudly with panicked look on his face as Lila replied.
"Well, I mean you getting so worked up over that song, not that it's your fault, I mean, I knew it was written for you when I chose it, but I didn't think you were so emotional about it." I choked on my ice water.
"Emotional?" I asked.
"Well, you have to admit, it was a bit childish to run out like that, I mean, honestly," I know she didn't mean for it to sound so arrogant, but I couldn't help how mad she was making me.
"But we don't blame you," Ethan put in quickly. I looked at him, shocked.
"You don't BLAME me?" I sputtered.
"Well, running out was selfish, especially on our wedding day. But we're not mad at you, I guess that's what we're trying to say," Lila was grinning as if she were the bloody good Samaritan.
"It was selfish of ME to get a little shaken up, because you used MY song, the only thing my real father ever left me?" I was getting a little loud at this point and breathing rabidly.
"Well, Hermione, really, it's not like it's really YOUR song," Lila said as if I were some sort of mistaken child.
"It is! It IS MY SONG!" I yelled, "He wrote it for ME!"
"Hermione," Ethan said grabbing my hand as I tried to stand up.
"Don't touch me!" I yelled ripping my hand away. "You betrayed me, I told you how much that song meant to me! You were the only one I ever told! I haven't even told my best friends!"
"Hermione, I'm sorry, but someday your going to have to face up to the fact that other people listen to it too," Ethan's voice was calm and steady in an infuriating way.
"What the hell happened to you?" I asked angrily, "Since when did you become Mr. Wisdom? Since when did the wishes of your slut become more important than your sister?" I was being entirely unfair at this point and I knew it, but I couldn't help but feel totally betrayed. Ethan knew about the closet nights, he had come into my room once when I was in the closet and I had told him the whole thing, he was the only one, the only one that knew. The only one I had told about You-Know-Who, the only one I had told about my life of people constantly letting me down, of the paranoia that not only were everyone around me who claimed they loved me letting me down, but that I was letting myself down. He was the only one that agreed with my views on love, the only one who had promised themselves never to get involved with anyone seriously, ever.
That had, of course changed after the first wedding, the love part, that it, but everything else had stayed the same, he had protected me from my doubts, from the haunting of the song. And now, he too had let me down, my last hope.
~
I had yelled a whole bunch of stuff about how they were going to break-up in a few months anyways, and how he had betrayed me for a three-month-fling, and a bunch of other foul things. And now, now I was at the under club, and I was drinking.
The others didn't even know I was there, Charlotte, Nicole and Lane. I had gone straight to the bar, gotten six drinks, for my "friends" and then taken them back to the very corner table.
I was about halfway through the fifth one when I saw her. The girl that had come in here after fleeing from her past school two days before, the girl whose life had been shattered, the girl who had seen death in many sick and disgusting ways, the girl that was corrupt and had no faith left in anything. I saw her walking through the door and drowning her cold memories in drinks.
I could feel the hot sting behind my eyes. I didn't want to be that girl again, I watched as the club started to empty out, watching the clichés, the groups of giggly girls just old enough to get in, the typical womanizer with several girls dressing his arms, the old drunks who stumbled in from work and stumbled in from being soused. I watched as my own friends left wiping their foreheads after lots of dancing, and comparing who had the best luck. I got up after the fifth one, feeling lightheaded. I stumbled through the crowd feeling as though I were in some parallel universe where everything moved sporadically at strange instances.
I ran headlong into a large man with a burly look about him. He grabbed me looking down at me with two heads and a amused look on his faces.
"Well 'ello little la-deee," He slurred pulling me towards him and letting his hands slide down my back. I tried aimlessly to pull away, or step on his foot or something, but my aim, was off and I came closer o kicking myself then actually hitting him. Finally I grabbed my wand from my pocket muttering a quick stun, and then waking him up again so as not to draw notice, but we did draw notice.
"Bitch!" He screeched. And I could seeing Leo, the security guard that normally handled the door come towards us.
"What's going on?" He asked threateningly.
"This bitch punched me or something," The burly man slurred glaring at me.
"That true?" Leo asked, grabbing onto my arm as if to restrain me. I looked up at him to drunk to say anything of sense, as burly man showed Leo the bruise growing on his cheek. "Looks like we're going to have to take you in for fighting-" Leo started but was cut off when a low, and worried voice called:
"Louisa! Louisa!" Ron broke through the crowd, cowboy hat on head and hugged me to him whispering: "Just play along," In my ear before letting me go. "What's going on officer?" He asked in his artificial twang.
"Well, looks as though this young lady got into a fight with this man," Leo explained. Ron contorted his worried expression into one of shock and disbelief.
"I don't believe it! My Sweet little wife Louisa? Brawling the night of our honeymoon? Why she wouldn't hurt a dern fly on one o' our horses backs," He twanged proudly. "If you ask me this man here's got the wrong woman, maybe one two many drinks." Leo considered this looking at burly man's, red face, and drooling mouth.
"Suppose so, sorry about the inconvenience," He muttered Ron nodded.
"No problem, sir, just doin' yer job," Ron said tipping his hat, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the bar with him. I yanked away once we were out the door and started walking as quickly as I could.
"Hermione! Come on, I saved your ass!" Ron called after me. I could hear him following me and I tried to pick up the pace, leaving me hitting the pavement with a "thump!" and a whimper.
I was sobbing, and I couldn't help it. All the thoughts of the night rushed into each other in my head like a massive car crash. Ethan letting me down, me letting me down. The clichés that I never fit into. The friend I had deserted. Everything.
"Shhhh," Came the low hiss in front of me. I looked up and all I saw were two blue eyes looking back, two blue eyes reflecting everything I needed, sympathy, stability, hope, kindness... and love.
~
I woke up with a lump in my back, I figured I was in my closet and it was a shoe, that had happened before, I reached underneath my back and yanked the hard think out, it was a shoe, but it wasn't mine. I sat up straight looking around me, the room was dim, but even in the dim light I could see that it was extremely messy. The shoe was large, like a man's shoe. And then I heard the voice, a long low voice:
'This lullaby
Just a simple run of chords
Hear it
lying here in this spare room
I will let you down
But this lullaby plays on...'
A memory sunk into my mind, I was sitting there on the curb crying, sobbing, thinking of everything and then I had looked up into those eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. One of us had made the move, one of us had reached out and touched the other one, and embraced the other one, one of us had done it, and I had tried to clamp off my memory, afraid to find out who it was. Afraid to see if he had taken advantage of me in my drunken state, or if I had given in.
The memory wouldn't stop though, and I watched as I looked into those eyes and then leaned forward laying my head against that strong chest. I had done it. He hadn't touched me until I had done it.
I put my head in my hands. Not believing that I had given in, that I had let him comfort me when I was vulnerable. I looked down under the sheets, seeing that apparently, that was all he had done, comforted me, I mean. It was still too much. Being in debt to someone it the worst place to be in my opinion. And this was even worse, considering there was a good chance I had puked on his at some point the night before. I got up quickly, knowing I had to get out before he came in to see if I was up. I ran to the window, where a large collection of snow globes were lined up. Seriously who over the age of ten collects snow globes? I knocked them off the windowsill, popping the screen out of the window. I was about to jump when I got that guilty pang in my stomach. I had to do something. I got down from the window and went over to the bed, first pulling the blankets down and ridding the bed of two miss-match socks, a guitar pick, a chocolate frog wrapper, and a tennis ball, and then pulling the blankets back up and making the bed hotel style.
It was a bit tacky, but the best I could do considering that now I could here them talking in the next room over and the name "Hermione" had been used more hen three times. I grabbed the cell phone off of the table and went to the window.
I nervously perched on the sill, jumped out, and ran down the street non-stop until I was out of sight of the tiny shack-like house, then I pulled out the phone and called Charlotte, who came to pick me up.
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Yay! 7 reviews! I'm glad you guys like the story even if I haven't given you all of Hermione's background yet. More of that will come later, I promise!