Disclaimer: as always, all this Potter stuff is property of JK Rowling…only the plot and the new characters are mine.
IT'S A PROMISE
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your knees
Welcome to the jungle
If you want you're gonna bleed
But it's the price you pay
Welcome to the jungle, Guns N'Roses
*****************
Ginny and Hermione sat down at their favourite table in the Leaky Cauldron and decided to take there their lunch. Harry was at his training with the Chudley Cannons and Ron was still outside investigating, so they decided to have lunch together.
Ginny put down her fork and smiled at her best friend. "What's up with you, Hermione?"
Hermione seemed distracted. "Sorry?"
"You see? Something is up with you. The question is: what?"
"It's nothing…" she tried, but a moment later glanced up and met Ginn's eyes. "Ok, ok, I think…I feel nervous."
Ginny arched an eyebrow. "About the wedding?"
"Yes…well, not exactly…"
"…you're just afraid, cause you love him and this is the truth, but there's another truth, and that's your fear about your future with him." Ginny said naturally.
Hermione was shocked. "How do you know this?"
Ginny laughed. "Oh, come on, Hermione! I married the most famous wizard in the magic world almost one year ago! I'm still a fresh wife."
"I'm totally sure about loving him," Hermione said with a puzzled and nervous look in her eyes. "But I'm totally afraid of what can happen if we go on like a married couple. I mean, there are things we've never discussed until now, but then we'll have to talk about things like…well, our jobs, future children, our projects…"
"What about your jobs?"
Hermione sighed loudly. "There's nothing to say, Ginny. I know how much your brother loves his job, and I don't want to be selfish, but this Raven thing is driving me crazy. I've nightmares every night, I wish I could be sure this is just my imagination which is totally gone this time, but still…I've bad forebodings."
Ginny bit her lip and nodded. "I can imagine, and I can understand you and your fear. But what can you do?"
"Nothing." Hermione passed her hand through her hair. "It's Ron we're talking about, isn't he? Since when he's careful and listens to anyone's advice?" she smiled nervously and drank her glass of wine.
"Well, if this can help you, every time I see Harry diving on that broom of his, my heart goes crazy." Ginny said with a frown. "Every time he shows how good and brave he is with that piece of wood, I just want to close my eyes and open them again finding him with his feet on the ground, vertically if this is possible."
Hermione smiled a bit. "How comes that these husbands are such a problem for us?"
"Oh, don't ask me. They say 'we can't understand women', and we say 'we can't help but worry about our men'. It's a mistery, I think. There's no rational explanation."
"I agree."
Ginny hesitated. "Hermione…what do you think about children?"
"You're asking if I want any?" Ginny nodded. "Well, of course I want children from Ron…but right now I don't think it's a good idea. We're both very taken up with the work and all…I'd like to take one step at a time."
"And what's Ron's opinion?"
"We've never talked about this, actually." She simply said.
"I'm sure he just wants to marry you for now, but only for now…" Ginny said with a sing-song voice.
Hermione looked at her and smirked. "Have you ever talked about this with Harry?"
"Well, yeah. Once he brought it up. He wants two sons, maybe three, but we think it's just a bit too early. Perhaps next year…" she said naturally.
Hermione glanced at her watch and sighed in frustration. "See? It's half past two. I told him to owl me before lunchtime to tell me about him talking to the priest. Is anywhere near me a owl? Obviously not. He's too busy with his damn job of his to take care of his own wedding." She said with a bitter tone.
Ginny frowned. "Poor man. He's going to marry his best friend, while he's trying to capture an evil killer and his gang. What a pity, do you let him sleep during nights at least?"
"My, Ginny!" Hermione looked at her with a horrified expression. "Well, not every night…"
"You two should go and leave for the honeymoon tomorrow morning, you know." Ginny said, shaking her head with a grin.
Ron knocked twice on his chief's door, then went in. The room was very quite, and William Breadliffe was sitting behind his desk, still with a mobile in his hand. When he saw Ron coming he motioned him to sit down in front of the desk, and kept on talking for almost a minute, then he put down the mobile and looked at Ron.
"So?" he snapped.
"William, my division is working hard over this. You just can't let Clive Russel on Raven, this is my case." He said a bit animately, but trying to keep his composture.
"Ron, you're doing a very good job indeed." The man said with a neutral expression.
"But?"
"But this Raven thing is becoming quite huge, and I can't wait anymore. The press is a bloody thorn in the waist, the Ministry is going crazy with these attacks, they say the relationships between wizards and muggles are going to the hell, if we don't catch that damn man."
"And do you think Clive and his fucking team of idiots will do better than us?"
"Honestly, Ron." His chief frowned. "Clive is the idiot we all know, but he has good investigators, and did quite a job when I sent him to talk with the muggle policemen."
"This is because he can do only this!" said an angry Ron. "Let's put him on a broom to follow Raven on his Speedlight 2010, let's see if he falls off one or two seconds after!"
"I know!" the man seemed quite exasperated.
"Then why are you doing this, William?"
"Ron, let's be totally serious." He said. "You're going to get married in less than a month, and to be completely honest, I don't think a month will be sufficient to catch that bloody Raven. I don't want your division going on with the investigations without you, and I don't think your wife would like if I called you while you two are on your honeymoon. Think about this."
Ron threw his hand up in exasperation. "So, that's it. You're cutting me off cause I'm getting married."
"Ron, be mature…"
"I am mature, William!" he nearly yelled. "You think I'm acting distracted because of my wedding? Funny, cause right yesterday my fiancee said I'm totally forgetting her and our wedding. I'm giving my total attention to this fucking case, bloody hell!"
"And what if you don't catch him in a month, Ron? What will you do, mh? Will you give up your honeymoon?"
"Who says I can't catch that son of a bitch in a month?"
"But what if you don't?"
"Let's live day by day, ok?" Ron looked at him with a strong gaze. "Look, I'm not an irresponsible git. I know how bad the situation is, and I truly care for muggle and muggleborns, my fiancee happens to be a muggleborn herself. You can trust me, and beside I'm the best and you know this."
William shook his head and then grinned. "I really hope you'll do your best, or either your fiancee or I are going to beat the hell out of you."
Ron smirked and winked at him. "Don't take this bad, Will, but I still prefer her, altough I love you very much."
The man laughed. "Go on, you arsehole, and find Raven the soonest you can."
"Yes, sir." He stood up and went out of the room.
Ron came home at 19.30. He immediately looked for Hermione in the kitchen, but he just found the dinner cooking all by itself. This wasn't a good sign at all: she didn't cook when she was sad or angry, or even both. So he went to their room, and finally found her in the bathroom, in the tub; she was having a bath and was all naked under the water, with her long hair pulled up in an unruly bun. Even if he could sense her rage (she didn't even turn when he called her coming in), he couldn't help but stare at her: she was so beautiful, with locks of hair falling along her face, and her chocolate eyes deeper than ever.
"Here you are." He said, and began to unbutton his shirt. She still didn't flinch and he took off his shirt and jeans. "Do you mind if I join you?" without waiting for her answer, he took off his boxers and slipped in the tub, putting himself with his back against the edge; he tried to put his hands on her shoulders to ease her back against his chest, but she threw them away. "Hermione, are you going to talk to me eventually?"
"No." she simply said, with a strong tone of voice.
"Good. So you're going to avoid me all the evening."
"Yes."
"Too bad, don't you think? We still have to resume that talk of ours…" he put his arms around her waist and tried to make her lean back against him again, but she refused and pushed away his arms.
"Leave me alone! I'm taking a bath, who asked you to join me?!" she yelled.
"Don't act that childish, please!" he snapped, and immediately saw with regret her turning around to look at him, eyes burning with rage.
"You know, for once I don't want to talk to you at all! And if you don't leave off, then I'll go away!" she stood up, but he forced her down again. "Leave me alone, bloody hell!"
He was a bit surprised to hear her swearing, but simply held her upper arms strongly. "I know I promised you we would go and talk to the priest, but I had too much work, and…"
"Oh, yes, of course! Your work! Cause what's more important in your life than your job?" she was furious.
"Don't act like a ninny, Hermione, there's a bloody killer outside who's killing tons of innocent people, I think this is more important than your damn priest!"
"Come on, say it! Say you have second thoughts!" she yelled with a trembling voice. "Say you don't want to marry me anymore!!"
He shook his head in astonishment. "Are you gone fucking mad, Hermione?!"
"I'm tired, all right?!" she was near tears now. "I'm tired of arranging a wedding in which you don't have any interest at all, I'm tired of being the only one who goes around trying to make this damn celebration the wedding of my dreams, I'm tired of being alone all the evening, and most important of all, I'm tired of being worried that your fucking arse is in danger, shit!! I'm tired!!" and with that she couldn't help the tears that began to fall down her eyes.
Ron felt his heart hurt. He hated when she cried, and the worst thing was that it was almost always his fault. He slowly took her hand, but when she tried to push him away, he used his stronger arms to make her lean with her back against his abdomen, and put one arm around her waist and the other one above her upper chest.
"I'm so sorry, love." He whispered in her ear, kissing her temple while she was still sobbing. He let her cry hard until her sobs became soft hiccups. "I'm sorry, I truly am. I completely forgot about the priest, but please don't think I forgot about you or our wedding. Damn, I'm waiting this moment since we were old enough to do this, do you know how much I'm looking forward to call you as my wife?" she sighed, but didn't say anything. "I want to catch Raven, Hermione. And not only because it's my job and I love it, but mostly because I want to save human lives. I saw what he did, and I don't want to see anything similar at all. I have to stop him, or he'll keep on killing. He may even try and go after you bacuse of your muggle origins, and I can't let this happen, never in my lifetime. Can you understand this?"
She sighed loudly, her breath trembling, and he kissed the crook of her neck and her shoulder. "I feel lonely. And scared." She whispered.
He kept on kissing softly the skin between her neck and shoulder. "Don't be, please, love. Tell me, what would you like me to do?"
She hesitated, then relaxed and let her head lean against his chest. "I just want to be with you. No jobs, no Raven, no danger anymore. Just you and I." She said in a very soft whisper.
He tilted her chin up with a gentle finger and looked directly into her chocolate eyes with his deep blue ones. "I promise I'll catch him in less than three weeks. Than nothing will come between our wedding and us. Just give me three weeks."
She sniffled. "Three weeks to let your sorry arse blow up?"
He grinned. "Or to let my arse become an invincible arse." She smiled a bit and he felt his heart melt; he dried her tears with his thumbs and kissed her forhead. "This is a promise, and I'll never break it."
She nodded slowly. "That's ok with me. I'll try and make our wedding a very good one."
"I'm sure you'll do absolutely great, sweetheart." He said, cupping her cheek in his warm hand. "However, isn't there anymore anything the bad groom could do to help the beautiful bride?" he said.
She though a bit, then smiled shyly. "Well…you could come with me to choose the keepsakes, on Monday afternoon."
"Good. I'll come with you." He winked at her, and she smiled more.
She shrugged with a sarcastic smile. "The last famous words…"
He took her face in a hand. "Hey, trust me. I'll be there with you, it's a promise."
"Another one. Be careful, Weasley." She added grinning. He grinned back and kissed her slowly and deeply. Sometimes he thought he could keep on kissing her like this for hours. He loved her taste, her rosy lips, her wonderful mouth, her little brave tongue…God, he was so in love with her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he was going to marry her in less than a month, even if he had to drag that bloody Raven in chains till the aisle with him.
When she broke the kiss, she relaxed against his chest again, closing her eyes. "Ron?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
He smiled and tightened his grip on her. "I love you too."
The muggle school was completely surrounded by policemen, but none of them was trying to burst in. Ron, Lex, Sean and about fifty aurors arrived there in less than five seconds, and they immediately proceeded to alter their memory and let them out of the situation. Raven and his goons were in that school, holding the pupils and the teachers as hostages. They had to act very carefully, and they couldn't let those muggle men ruin everything.
"All right, everyone." Ron said, wand in hand. "Stay sharp, be careful. There are children over there."
The group divided into three smaller groups and they carefully went through the school, but every classroom they found was completely empty. They kept on searching, until they arrived on the third floor. There all of them met and found an only door at the end of the corridor. Ron slowly opened it, with his wand held tightly in his hand, but what they saw made their blood freeze.
There were corpses all over the floor: children, men, women…all of them dead.
"Bloody hell…" Lex whispered, near dropping his wand on the floor.
"Hey, Ron!" Sean shouted from the outside. Ron, still trying to recover from the shock, reached him out of the room and found a note pinned up by a dagger against the wall.
Do you like what you see, Weasley?
Hermione opened her house door and went in, putting immediately the bags on the floor to keep them safe: they were full of frail things, it could be a sorry mess if one of them broke. Then she turned the lights on and found, with a great surprise, Ron sitting on their couch, with a glass of whisky in his hand. He looked like hell, and this worried her a lot.
"Ron!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be still at your work?"
He didn't answer, he just looked up at her eyes, so deep and full of concern for him. She saw him tense and put down her coat. "What happened?" she whispered slowly. She didn't want to push him further, but something had indeed happened.
Without a word, he rose from his seat and took her by her upper arms, and kissed her hard. This was something she didn't expect: his kiss wasn't gentle, deep and passional as always; it was indeed very passional, too passional to be correct. He was litterally devouring her mouth with his hungry and aggressive tongue, he wasn't giving her even the chance to kiss him back: his hands were wandering frantically all over her body, clinging her to himself hard. In less than a minute she was gasping for air and trying desperately to break the kiss.
"Ron…Ron, please…" she murmured against his mouth, but he didn't let go. "…please…I can't…stop…" eventually she managed to push him away. "I said stop!"
He didn't give up anyway and tried to unbutton her shirt frantically. "I want you…I need you right now…"
She put her hands over his, trying to stop him. "Ron…tell me what's wrong, please." She whispered. He tried to kiss her again, still unbottoning her shirt, but she turned her face. "What happened?" she repeated, more determined.
He took a huge breath and finally let go of her shirt, but hugged her with a disperate need and buried his face in the crook of her neck. She held him tight to her, sensing his need, his desperation, his muscular shoulders trembling with something that she couldn't describe just as fear…"Ron…" she tried again.
"All of them." He whispered against her soft skin. "Children, young teachers, all dead." His sentences were inchoerent, and his voice was deeper than usual. "He used the Avada Kedavra on them."
She closed her eyes and hugged him tighter, stroking his nape with her gentle fingers. "I'm so sorry, honey." She whispered gently.
He tightened his grip on her waist and back. "I saw a man when he found out his wife was dead. He was desperate, he was crying, and screaming the hell out, and…"
"Ssh, it's over, it's all over now." She tried to comfort him.
"When I saw this…I thought…I thought…" he was trying to find the words…but maybe he was just trying not to think about what he was telling to her. "…I thought that if it had been you that woman on the floor…"
She kissed his cheek. "But I'm here with you, love. And I'm safe and sound because you're with me."
He glanced up at her directly into her eyes, his full of mixed emotions. "I love you so much, do you know this?"
She smiled warmly. "Yeah."
"I want to be with you forever." He whispered with a voice deeper than usual, and with that he kissed her gently. This was how their kisses were meant to be: deep, full of love, explosions of feelings, passional and caring. Their kiss never broke, even when he picked her up and turned to go up in their bedroom.
Well, that's all for chapter 2…did you like it? I hope so.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed my first chap, and keep on doing it, please!
Are there any new characters? Oh yeah, William Breadliffe, Ron's chief…well..he's more like Gabriel Byrne, I think!
