Diclaimer: I still don't own any of these characters. They all belong to J.K.Rowling, except any that you don't recognise (i.e. James!)
NB reminder: Ginny is 16, Hermione is 17, James is in his last year of school, and Oliver returned to Hogwarts to teach Quidditch after leaving school.
Time of your life: Chapter 2
By Firefly
Hermione was still sitting in the common room when Ginny got back.
"Wood was looking for you," she began. No-one had got used to calling him Professor.
"He found me," Ginny replied slowly, confused about everything that had happened and unsure of how much to disclose to Hermione.
"He seemed really jumpy. He said it was important."
"Oh," Ginny shook her head, " Yeah…something we were talking about yesterday." She mumbled. Hermione looked at her concerned.
"You're not in trouble are you?" Hermione asked raising her eyebrows,
"What? No, of course not!" Ginny stared into the fireplace. She could feel the tears building up, and couldn't stop them. Hermione reached across and put an arm round her shoulders.
"Hey, look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you by it," she whispered.
"It's not Wood, is it, it's James…" she added bluntly. Ginny wiped her face across her sleeve and took a deep breath. Slowly and carefully she told Hermione exactly what had happened with James, missing out the part about running into Oliver.
"Ginny! You should have told me," she exclaimed. Ginny shrugged, and stood up.
"James is such a bloody pig," she added.
"I'm going to bed," Ginny mumbled, heading for the staircase, her mind constantly drifting back to Oliver. She knew she shouldn't have kissed him. There was no way they could be together anyway. He was her teacher. She'd been stupid to think that something could come of it. Ginny sighed, wondering how on Earth she was going to face him the next day, and working out whether she could fake a headache or something and go to the nurse instead.
* * *
"George, pass me the salt would you," Ron mumbled through a mouth full of food. When his brother didn't respond, he elbowed him in the chest.
"George?"
"What?" he asked defensively.
"Doesn't matter." Ron said agitated, shoving past him to grab the salt. Finally he pushed his plate forwards and sat back.
"Right, well I'm full," Ron said loudly, realising that he was the last to finish. He stood up to leave. Out the corner of his eye, he watched James walking out of the hall towards the stairway. He looked up slowly to see if Ginny had noticed, but she was totally absorbed with staring into space. Either she hadn't seen James, or she was pretending not to. Unfortunately Ron realised all too late that George had, and watched helplessly as his brother stood and crossed the hall towards him purposefully.
Ron cursed under his breath, knowing exactly what his brother intended to do, and he was also pretty sure he knew what the consequences would be as well. Before James even had the chance to turn around properly, George punched him hard across his temple.
"Well done George," Ron muttered sarcastically under his breath. He tried to stand up properly and climb over the bench, but Hermione pulled him back down.
"Don't get involved Ron," Hermione hissed quietly. Ron glared at her, but Hermione had seen Wood walking across the hall way on the other side of the door to stop the boys, but not before James had landed a punch on George's shoulder. Oliver reached them and grabbed each by the shirt, pulling them out of hearing distance of the hall. He waited for them to stop struggling.
"I didn't start it," James started defensively.
"Maybe not. I don't know what's going on here, but I do know that if was any other teacher who had seen you, you would probably both be expelled."
"Oh, come on Oliver," George growled, "You don't know the half it." Oliver raised his eyebrows at his friend, but feigned ignorance.
"Maybe not, but you know the rules George." Oliver made a point of looking at James as well. "Luckily for you, I'm not going to hand you over to professor McGonnagal, but I am giving you both detention. In the dungeons, tomorrow lunch, ok," He added pointedly. Oliver let go of their shirts, but glared at George to make sure he didn't go after James again. It had taken everything he had, not to punch James himself, but he knew it wouldn't be worth losing his job over. When James was out of earshot, George turned to Oliver.
"Oliver, what the heck do you think you're doing," he growled, "he had that coming you know," Oliver looked at him seriously.
"George…look, maybe you had a very good reason for doing that, but you know I can't let you off and not him. I mean, how would that look? You punched him in the face, George," Oliver said exasperated.
Why did George have to make it so hard? Oliver was finding it hard to be fair as it was– he had so badly wanted to use it as an excuse to expel James, but George had been the one who had started it. He knew that there was no way of being more lenient on George without people thinking he had favourites.
"Look George, just be grateful that McGonnagal wasn't walking past you, yeah," he added, before turning and leaving George glaring after him in the hall.
* * * * *
Hermione sat attentively in her potions lesson, trying desperately hard to look as if she was listening, but for once her mind was elsewhere. For starters, she couldn't figure out what was going on with Ginny and Wood, or rather Oliver, she corrected herself. He'd seemed pretty keen to see her, when she'd spoken to him in the corridor, and Ginny kept avoiding her questions. She also felt particularly uneasy at the moment, because Draco Malfoy had somehow managed to end up as her partner in potions for the third week running and for no apparent reason. The fact that he was leering at her constantly also made her feel uncomfortable.
The bell rang, and Hermione stood up quickly, eager to leave the lesson, cursing as the bottle on her desk she had been using earlier tipped over. The black liquid inside it trickled onto the floor. Muttering to herself, she hung around until Professor Snape had left the room, before fumbling for her wand.
Holding it over the floor, she noticed that Draco was still standing disturbingly close to her, despite the fact that the rest of the class had already left.
"Yes?" Hermione demanded, her fingers gripping tightly around her wand.
"Watch where you point that Granger, someone might get hurt," he muttered dryly. Draco grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her back.
"Let go of me," Hermione croaked urgently. "You're hurting me!" Draco ignored her and pushed her backwards into the wall, twisting her arm harder. Tears squeezed out of her eyes. She gave up resisting and sobbed into her sleeve. Through her tears, she realised suddenly that someone was standing behind him.
"She told you to let go Malfoy," James said icily. Draco shrugged and sneered at him.
"I'm sorry, but I don't take orders from mudbloods," he hissed. James stepped forwards and in the same movement punched him squarely on the jaw. Draco stumbled sideways and cursing left the classroom. James studied Hermione carefully. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she was clutching her arm awkwardly. She wouldn't look at him.
"Let me take you to the hospital Wing?" He whispered. Hermione side-stepped away from him.
"Go away James," she muttered, clumsily walking towards the door, but halfway there she began to sway and collapsed onto one of the desks. James picked her up carefully,
"I'm sorry but it doesn't look as if I can do that," he mumbled dryly.
* * *
Hermione woke up with a splitting head-ache and an extremely sore arm. The nurse was busy bustling around her side, obviously waiting for her to wake up.
"Glad to see you're awake," she muttered, "I think you can leave now, your arm is fine, I re-grew the splinters for you…You'll be in some pain for a while yet though." Hermione cursed lightly under her breath. She swore the nurse was smiling.
"Oh, and please tell your friends to stay quiet – there are some people in here who are actually ill," she added dryly, gesturing the door. Hermione ignored her. The nurse obviously assumed she's been in a fight or something. Glowering, she walked slowly towards the double doors, where she could make out Harry, Ron and Ginny's faces through the glass.
Apparently Ron and Harry had been arguing over a chocolate frog and Ginny was standing there frowning.
"'Mione, how are you? What on Earth happened?" Ginny asked hurriedly. "Neville told us you were here,"
"Draco…" Hermione started quietly. Tears of humiliation, hurt and exhaustion pricked at the back of her eyes. Slowly, she explained how Draco had cursed, shoved her into a wall, and twisted her arm.
"What, he just left you there?" Ron asked incredulously. Hermione glanced guiltily at Ginny, aware that she had only just recovered from what had happened to her.
"The bloody bastard," Ron exclaimed.
"Well, no…" she admitted.
"You hit him?" Ginny said, his eyes widening.
"It was James…He sort of punched Draco." Hermione watched the look of horror spread across Ginny's face.
"James…as in James?" Ron asked incredulously. "He had some bloody cheek showing his face after what he did to my sister!"
"Ron! He stopped Hermione…" Harry paused, "Look, at least Hermione's ok!" Harry finished slowly.
"Yeah, James saves the day," Ginny said sarcastically.
"I'm sorry," Hermione started, realising how hurt Ginny sounded.
"…I didn't mean that 'Mione, sorry, I mean you could have been really hurt," Ginny whispered, eyes widening. She forced a regretful smile.
"Right, well I'm starving," Ron said, suddenly changing the subject. Harry just stared at him.
"...yeah, we haven't eaten yet," Harry continued slowly.
* * *
Hey, hoped you liked the chappie – I wasn't sure how to handle that without going too too much out of character, which is probably why it took a few days to update, but nevermind – anyway, please read and review – positive criticism is helpful 2!!!
