Hey, here's the next chapter. I'm exhausted because I was up most of the
night doing this one. I can't wait until I finish this story, then I can
finally get some sleep!! Yeah, go sleep!
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chapter Nine
"So you want me to push my baby into a wall?" asked Cordelia staring at the barrier between platforms nine and ten at Kings Cross station.
"Yeah" said Draco "I think running is meant to make it easier the first time"
"Oh, you want me to run my baby into a wall?" she asked amazed. She turned to Harry, who was trying to stand so he didn't look like he was with them; Cordelia was speaking a little too loudly and several people were turning around to see the woman who was about run her baby at a wall. "Can't you just do a tappy thing with your wand like at Diagon Ally?"
"No that only works there; you just have to walk through the barrier"
"Obviously" she still wasn't convinced until she saw a family walk straight past them, through the wall and onto the barrier. "Fine, but seriously I get the whole magic/secrecy thing you people have going on, but can't you just get a door like normal people? Stick a bouncer on it if you're that paranoid"
"Suggest it to Dumbledore" said Draco. He and Draco exchanged glances; they were both thinking the same thing, 'wait until she sees Hogwarts'
When they finally reached the train there were no empty carriages. In response to this Cordelia handed Connor to Draco and went into a carriage full of seventh year boys. A few minutes later the boys all trooped out.
"Do I want to know what you said to them?" asked Draco, as he sent down in the newly empty compartment.
"Probably not" said Cordelia. She smiled when she saw Draco had forgotten to hand Connor back to her at the first possible chance as he usually did. She briefly imagined the family the three of them could make. She had to push it away; sometimes she forgot lately that Connor wasn't really her son. She had never told Draco about this. She was sure if she did tell him he would understand, at least he would have, maybe if she had told him when the topic came up of them running away. Or when Angel came, then would have worked too, now she wondered if it was too late, but at the same time she knew she had to tell him, eventually it would come up when the baby disappeared, she was quite sure that he would still be around.
Cordelia managed to think herself into a restless sleep. She slept for most of the journey and even though she was not awake to referee, Harry and Draco's fights were minimal. It seemed they were getting on even better now they were back in their own world, despite Cordelia's fears that it would be the opposite.
Harry had tried convincing Cordelia that they should take the boats over to Hogwarts with the first years, insisting that they would get the best view of the castle and she should as it was her first time. Cordelia had argued that some open boat was too cold for Connor. Meanwhile Draco just laughed at the fact that Harry actually thought he could change Cordelia's mind once she was set on something.
Draco had been right. Cordelia got her way as always. They had taken the carriages to the school. Harry had still waited the whole way until he could point out the first point where you could see the castle. Cordelia had seen the huge castle and was impressed, but she wasn't sure why Harry was getting so excited.
"Was he like this when you guys were at school?" Cordelia asked Draco while Harry had his head stuck out of the window, explaining something about getting the best view, confusing the two third years that were in the same carriage.
"I wouldn't know. We rarely talked except to exchange insults or curses"
"Isn't that what you do now?"
"Yeah, but then we were in different houses, so we could avoid each other more easily"
"Oh, right, what are houses?" she asked, she was sure it was some English boarding school thin, but didn't really get it.
"There are four, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. When you first get to the school you're sorted into the different houses by a hat"
"A hat? What you like pick different names out of a hat?"
He laughed "You put the hat on and it reads your qualities, the different houses have different qualities. Slytherin are sly and cunning, generally gorgeous and well built, plus altogether fantastic too"
"Is that was Harry was?" she asked innocently. One of the third years laughed then tried to cover it. She received a glare from Draco and a grin from Cordelia.
"Anyway, Ravenclaw are the smart ones, Gryffindor are the brave ones and Hufflepuff are, they're um" he thought for a minute, what were Hufflepuff again? I dunno the leftovers?"
The third year giggled again.
"So in you house you have classes, some are mixed but on the whole it's just your house. Your have the same dormitories, the same common room, you eat at the same table your on the same quidditch team"
"Quidditch is the sport on the brooms your were trying to explain to me right? With all the balls flying around and everyone's supposed to have a clue what ball goes where" said Cordelia interrupting his explanation again.
This made Harry put all body parts back into the carriage. "How can you make the best sport in the world sound so, so..." rather than finishing the sentence he turned to Draco "did you even try and explain it to her?"
"I tried, she got all the balls mixed up and I quit when I tried using pictures and she said she used to have a pair of earrings that looked like the snitch"
The whole carriage turned to give her a look of disgust. "OK" she said, "Little kids, talk amongst yourself and at east pretend your not listening to the adults' conversation. And you two stop looking at me like that, I don't get the sport and I really did used to have earrings like that. They were little gold balls and they didn't have wings but they were similar" She could see she wasn't going to get anywhere. So she tried another tactic. "So you were saying about the houses playing in quidditch teams?"
"The have a house cup" said Harry joining the conversation. "Every house plays every other house. The winner wins the quidditch cup. I was on the team from my first year, youngest ever seeker. Draco got in the next year, but he had to buy his way in"
"I did not buy my way in. I just got on it and my father decided to buy the whole team very good brooms" then he added quietly "Or possibly the other way around"
Cordelia had just watched smiling as the two of them got off into another argument. She always ended up laughing when she listening to them argue, and they never understood why.
Cordelia was trying not to look as awestruck as the eleven year old first years when she walked into the great hall. Harry and Draco were on either side of her and Connor was up in her room, it had taken some persuading but they had finally convinced her that house elves were good babysitters. She hadn't met any of the teachers yet, she had only briefly had time to go and see the room she was sharing with Draco before the feast.
As soon as she had taken her eyes of the roof Cordelia noticed some familiar faces on the teachers table. "What are they doing here?" she asked Harry.
"They both teach here. Hermione does muggle studies and Ron, defence against the dark arts"
"Thanks for the warning. Wait, what about their kid?"
"She uses floo network to get from here to her grandparents house and goes to a normal school from there. She comes back here most days but sometimes she just lives with them for most of week"
Before she could comment an old man, who looked like a stereotypical wizard right down to the robes and the long white hair, came to greet them.
"Harry, Draco. And this must be the lovely Miss Chase. I trust you all had an enjoyable journey. Now I hate to rush you, but the sorting ceremony is about to begin, I must urge you to take your seats at the head table"
"Sorting ceremony?" whispered Cordelia to Draco "Is that the thing with the hat?"
He just nodded towards the battered old hat sitting on a stool at the front.
"Cant do anything like normal people can you" she muttered under her breath.
Having marvelled at the talking hat Cordelia was now enjoying the feast with everyone else. Harry was sitting further down the table, and Draco who was beside her was having a conversation with somebody to his left, so Cordelia decided to try and talk to the guy on her right. He wasn't somebody she would normally speak to, mainly due to the cm thick coating of grease on his hair, but what the hell.
"Hi" she said "I'm Cordelia"
He turned to her slowly. "I know, Professor Dumbledore just announced who you were to the whole school"
"Now the polite thing to say would have been your name" she told him.
"Maybe I don't feel like being polite today"
"God, what's stuck up your arse?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well we're not being polite so I thought we could be frank. So what's stuck up your arse? Sit on your wand this morning?"
He put out his hand. "Severus Snape"
"See, was that so hard?" she asked. He just glared at her. "So what do you teach?" she asked, enjoying how much he didn't want to talk to her.
"Potions" he replied.
"Cool that can be my chem."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My chemistry. I'm getting totally confused by all these subjects so I'm giving them equivalents from my school. So potions is chem. I can only really think of equivalents for the easy ones anyway so it's not really a great system. You know arithmancy is math, herbology is biology, muggle studies I guess is home ec. I'm kinda stuck on the others. Divination could pretty much be my life since Doyle died, and DADA, staying alive from the day I met Buffy Summers"
"Buffy Summers? As in the slayer? You're telling me that a muggle like yourself knows the slayer"
"Both of them actually, and I met the one before Faith. I went to High School with Buffy and wait a minute, how do you know about her? I thought she was meant to be all secret identity gal!"
"Her reputation is known to many I our world. Albus has been considering inviting her here to help us in the future"
"Future being top secret upcoming battle I should know nothing about? That would be bad idea"
"Why?"
"Because Buffy's a general, not a soldier, she can't follow, she has to lead. That would be bad"
"Ah yes" he replied, voice laced with sarcasm. I can see why having an experienced champion of good leading us would be bad"
"Experienced champion of good? Buddy you're looking at one of those, but do you see me taking charge? No. Why? Because I know how to win, we put other people in charge"
"Anybody in particular or do we pick random names?"
"Draco and Harry"
"Oh, two children. I see, why didn't we think of that before? Did they suggest it?"
"No, they were pretty against the idea at first. Something about a one way ticket to painful deaths, but I talked them round"
"So it's your idea? You want to fight an evil wizard you know nothing about with the powers of the little boy who hardy rate above average in the power ranks"
"Hell no" she replied, letting the confusion set in before she continued; "If I had my way they would stay far away from any battles. I care about them and I don't like seeing people I care about get hurt, but when the big guys talk, I listen. It's in the job description"
"Big guys?" he said. This woman was annoying him a lot. The way she spoke made no sense to him and yet he got the feeling she was talking about something important. That was the only reason he was being half civil to her.
"The PTBs, Powers that be. You see I'm more than just a gorgeous exterior. I have a direct link to the powers that be. They send the visions; I pass them on and help fight them"
"So this is why you think you're a champion. You see pretty pictures in your head" he was disappointed. That was it? She thought she was a seer, so did Trelawney, and he didn't believe a word she said either.
"No it's more about the pain I originally had with the visions. The sacrifices I've made, which literally includes some of my humanity. I have to send my friends out into situations they may not come back from; I have to send myself into situations I may not come back from. Hell, the PTBs like me so much I got to spend some time p there in the future, and possibly never, which makes no sense at all. But please, try and tell me after everything I've gone through that I just see pretty pictures"
It was then that Cordelia noticed she was doing the 'glowy thing' again. She sighed in frustration and marched out of the hall. Draco excused himself from his own conversation and followed her.
He didn't have to look far. "Are you OK?" he asked, finding her just outside the hall leaning against the wall.
"I had so not finished in that argument. Why do I end up doing an impression of a 100watt light bulb every time I get angry?"
"You'll learn to control it eventually" said Draco, trying to be helpful.
"When? And how, control is about thinking and reasoning, anger isn't, it's in the passion list. It's like hate; it's not about thinking it's about feeling. In the middle of all that how am I going to be able to think 'must not glow, must not glow'? And oh my god I just sounded like Angelus. Great, I've gone from doing impressions of light bulbs to evil ..."
She didn't continue. Draco had stopped her the only way he could think of, and she didn't want to break away from the kiss to continue her mindless rant.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Okay, the chapter was a bit longer than I expected and most of it was Cordy ranting so probably quite boring. It's taken me like three days to write this chapter, rather than the normal half hour, I don't know why I just couldn't focus and didn't really know where it was going. Hopefully the next one will come easier!
As always review if you liked it!
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chapter Nine
"So you want me to push my baby into a wall?" asked Cordelia staring at the barrier between platforms nine and ten at Kings Cross station.
"Yeah" said Draco "I think running is meant to make it easier the first time"
"Oh, you want me to run my baby into a wall?" she asked amazed. She turned to Harry, who was trying to stand so he didn't look like he was with them; Cordelia was speaking a little too loudly and several people were turning around to see the woman who was about run her baby at a wall. "Can't you just do a tappy thing with your wand like at Diagon Ally?"
"No that only works there; you just have to walk through the barrier"
"Obviously" she still wasn't convinced until she saw a family walk straight past them, through the wall and onto the barrier. "Fine, but seriously I get the whole magic/secrecy thing you people have going on, but can't you just get a door like normal people? Stick a bouncer on it if you're that paranoid"
"Suggest it to Dumbledore" said Draco. He and Draco exchanged glances; they were both thinking the same thing, 'wait until she sees Hogwarts'
When they finally reached the train there were no empty carriages. In response to this Cordelia handed Connor to Draco and went into a carriage full of seventh year boys. A few minutes later the boys all trooped out.
"Do I want to know what you said to them?" asked Draco, as he sent down in the newly empty compartment.
"Probably not" said Cordelia. She smiled when she saw Draco had forgotten to hand Connor back to her at the first possible chance as he usually did. She briefly imagined the family the three of them could make. She had to push it away; sometimes she forgot lately that Connor wasn't really her son. She had never told Draco about this. She was sure if she did tell him he would understand, at least he would have, maybe if she had told him when the topic came up of them running away. Or when Angel came, then would have worked too, now she wondered if it was too late, but at the same time she knew she had to tell him, eventually it would come up when the baby disappeared, she was quite sure that he would still be around.
Cordelia managed to think herself into a restless sleep. She slept for most of the journey and even though she was not awake to referee, Harry and Draco's fights were minimal. It seemed they were getting on even better now they were back in their own world, despite Cordelia's fears that it would be the opposite.
Harry had tried convincing Cordelia that they should take the boats over to Hogwarts with the first years, insisting that they would get the best view of the castle and she should as it was her first time. Cordelia had argued that some open boat was too cold for Connor. Meanwhile Draco just laughed at the fact that Harry actually thought he could change Cordelia's mind once she was set on something.
Draco had been right. Cordelia got her way as always. They had taken the carriages to the school. Harry had still waited the whole way until he could point out the first point where you could see the castle. Cordelia had seen the huge castle and was impressed, but she wasn't sure why Harry was getting so excited.
"Was he like this when you guys were at school?" Cordelia asked Draco while Harry had his head stuck out of the window, explaining something about getting the best view, confusing the two third years that were in the same carriage.
"I wouldn't know. We rarely talked except to exchange insults or curses"
"Isn't that what you do now?"
"Yeah, but then we were in different houses, so we could avoid each other more easily"
"Oh, right, what are houses?" she asked, she was sure it was some English boarding school thin, but didn't really get it.
"There are four, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. When you first get to the school you're sorted into the different houses by a hat"
"A hat? What you like pick different names out of a hat?"
He laughed "You put the hat on and it reads your qualities, the different houses have different qualities. Slytherin are sly and cunning, generally gorgeous and well built, plus altogether fantastic too"
"Is that was Harry was?" she asked innocently. One of the third years laughed then tried to cover it. She received a glare from Draco and a grin from Cordelia.
"Anyway, Ravenclaw are the smart ones, Gryffindor are the brave ones and Hufflepuff are, they're um" he thought for a minute, what were Hufflepuff again? I dunno the leftovers?"
The third year giggled again.
"So in you house you have classes, some are mixed but on the whole it's just your house. Your have the same dormitories, the same common room, you eat at the same table your on the same quidditch team"
"Quidditch is the sport on the brooms your were trying to explain to me right? With all the balls flying around and everyone's supposed to have a clue what ball goes where" said Cordelia interrupting his explanation again.
This made Harry put all body parts back into the carriage. "How can you make the best sport in the world sound so, so..." rather than finishing the sentence he turned to Draco "did you even try and explain it to her?"
"I tried, she got all the balls mixed up and I quit when I tried using pictures and she said she used to have a pair of earrings that looked like the snitch"
The whole carriage turned to give her a look of disgust. "OK" she said, "Little kids, talk amongst yourself and at east pretend your not listening to the adults' conversation. And you two stop looking at me like that, I don't get the sport and I really did used to have earrings like that. They were little gold balls and they didn't have wings but they were similar" She could see she wasn't going to get anywhere. So she tried another tactic. "So you were saying about the houses playing in quidditch teams?"
"The have a house cup" said Harry joining the conversation. "Every house plays every other house. The winner wins the quidditch cup. I was on the team from my first year, youngest ever seeker. Draco got in the next year, but he had to buy his way in"
"I did not buy my way in. I just got on it and my father decided to buy the whole team very good brooms" then he added quietly "Or possibly the other way around"
Cordelia had just watched smiling as the two of them got off into another argument. She always ended up laughing when she listening to them argue, and they never understood why.
Cordelia was trying not to look as awestruck as the eleven year old first years when she walked into the great hall. Harry and Draco were on either side of her and Connor was up in her room, it had taken some persuading but they had finally convinced her that house elves were good babysitters. She hadn't met any of the teachers yet, she had only briefly had time to go and see the room she was sharing with Draco before the feast.
As soon as she had taken her eyes of the roof Cordelia noticed some familiar faces on the teachers table. "What are they doing here?" she asked Harry.
"They both teach here. Hermione does muggle studies and Ron, defence against the dark arts"
"Thanks for the warning. Wait, what about their kid?"
"She uses floo network to get from here to her grandparents house and goes to a normal school from there. She comes back here most days but sometimes she just lives with them for most of week"
Before she could comment an old man, who looked like a stereotypical wizard right down to the robes and the long white hair, came to greet them.
"Harry, Draco. And this must be the lovely Miss Chase. I trust you all had an enjoyable journey. Now I hate to rush you, but the sorting ceremony is about to begin, I must urge you to take your seats at the head table"
"Sorting ceremony?" whispered Cordelia to Draco "Is that the thing with the hat?"
He just nodded towards the battered old hat sitting on a stool at the front.
"Cant do anything like normal people can you" she muttered under her breath.
Having marvelled at the talking hat Cordelia was now enjoying the feast with everyone else. Harry was sitting further down the table, and Draco who was beside her was having a conversation with somebody to his left, so Cordelia decided to try and talk to the guy on her right. He wasn't somebody she would normally speak to, mainly due to the cm thick coating of grease on his hair, but what the hell.
"Hi" she said "I'm Cordelia"
He turned to her slowly. "I know, Professor Dumbledore just announced who you were to the whole school"
"Now the polite thing to say would have been your name" she told him.
"Maybe I don't feel like being polite today"
"God, what's stuck up your arse?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well we're not being polite so I thought we could be frank. So what's stuck up your arse? Sit on your wand this morning?"
He put out his hand. "Severus Snape"
"See, was that so hard?" she asked. He just glared at her. "So what do you teach?" she asked, enjoying how much he didn't want to talk to her.
"Potions" he replied.
"Cool that can be my chem."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My chemistry. I'm getting totally confused by all these subjects so I'm giving them equivalents from my school. So potions is chem. I can only really think of equivalents for the easy ones anyway so it's not really a great system. You know arithmancy is math, herbology is biology, muggle studies I guess is home ec. I'm kinda stuck on the others. Divination could pretty much be my life since Doyle died, and DADA, staying alive from the day I met Buffy Summers"
"Buffy Summers? As in the slayer? You're telling me that a muggle like yourself knows the slayer"
"Both of them actually, and I met the one before Faith. I went to High School with Buffy and wait a minute, how do you know about her? I thought she was meant to be all secret identity gal!"
"Her reputation is known to many I our world. Albus has been considering inviting her here to help us in the future"
"Future being top secret upcoming battle I should know nothing about? That would be bad idea"
"Why?"
"Because Buffy's a general, not a soldier, she can't follow, she has to lead. That would be bad"
"Ah yes" he replied, voice laced with sarcasm. I can see why having an experienced champion of good leading us would be bad"
"Experienced champion of good? Buddy you're looking at one of those, but do you see me taking charge? No. Why? Because I know how to win, we put other people in charge"
"Anybody in particular or do we pick random names?"
"Draco and Harry"
"Oh, two children. I see, why didn't we think of that before? Did they suggest it?"
"No, they were pretty against the idea at first. Something about a one way ticket to painful deaths, but I talked them round"
"So it's your idea? You want to fight an evil wizard you know nothing about with the powers of the little boy who hardy rate above average in the power ranks"
"Hell no" she replied, letting the confusion set in before she continued; "If I had my way they would stay far away from any battles. I care about them and I don't like seeing people I care about get hurt, but when the big guys talk, I listen. It's in the job description"
"Big guys?" he said. This woman was annoying him a lot. The way she spoke made no sense to him and yet he got the feeling she was talking about something important. That was the only reason he was being half civil to her.
"The PTBs, Powers that be. You see I'm more than just a gorgeous exterior. I have a direct link to the powers that be. They send the visions; I pass them on and help fight them"
"So this is why you think you're a champion. You see pretty pictures in your head" he was disappointed. That was it? She thought she was a seer, so did Trelawney, and he didn't believe a word she said either.
"No it's more about the pain I originally had with the visions. The sacrifices I've made, which literally includes some of my humanity. I have to send my friends out into situations they may not come back from; I have to send myself into situations I may not come back from. Hell, the PTBs like me so much I got to spend some time p there in the future, and possibly never, which makes no sense at all. But please, try and tell me after everything I've gone through that I just see pretty pictures"
It was then that Cordelia noticed she was doing the 'glowy thing' again. She sighed in frustration and marched out of the hall. Draco excused himself from his own conversation and followed her.
He didn't have to look far. "Are you OK?" he asked, finding her just outside the hall leaning against the wall.
"I had so not finished in that argument. Why do I end up doing an impression of a 100watt light bulb every time I get angry?"
"You'll learn to control it eventually" said Draco, trying to be helpful.
"When? And how, control is about thinking and reasoning, anger isn't, it's in the passion list. It's like hate; it's not about thinking it's about feeling. In the middle of all that how am I going to be able to think 'must not glow, must not glow'? And oh my god I just sounded like Angelus. Great, I've gone from doing impressions of light bulbs to evil ..."
She didn't continue. Draco had stopped her the only way he could think of, and she didn't want to break away from the kiss to continue her mindless rant.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Okay, the chapter was a bit longer than I expected and most of it was Cordy ranting so probably quite boring. It's taken me like three days to write this chapter, rather than the normal half hour, I don't know why I just couldn't focus and didn't really know where it was going. Hopefully the next one will come easier!
As always review if you liked it!