Love Lost is Love Gained
Chapter 8: Meeting 'Mione
"Ow," she heard Remus groan from somewhere next to her. She opened her eyes to see a cobblestone road in front of her face. Remus knocked her down pretty hard; her head hurt like hell, and it felt wet. She reached up by her left temple to find that her fingers had turned red. 'I'm bleeding?' she thought, 'How hard did I fall?' She lifted her head from the ground to be surrounded by a jumble of robes, smashed ink wells, and books, not to mention a Remus. No one was on the street, which she thought was odd. Looking up at the sky she realized that it was starting to storm. Huge raindrops began falling, and lightning forked across the sky.
"Remus," she called, she sat up and looked over a small pile of packages to see Remus sitting up, rubbing his forehead. "Are you okay?" she asked, he wasn't looking to well. He looked paler that he did before and he was drenched with water, as was all of her stuff.
"Yeah, I'm fine. But you don't look alright, you're bleeding."
"Yeah, it's nothing," she said wiping her bloody, wet hair from her eyes.
"Oh, no, all you-" his voice was drowned out by a loud clap of thunder.
"Remus," she yelled, "What are we going to do about all this?" she motioned to all of her stuff.
"Quick, pack it all up again. Wait, where's your wand?"
"It's in one of the boxes," she said, "Why?"
"Just find it," he began looking through bags and then found it. Removing it from its box, he made a sweeping motion, and all the bags were packed again. With another flick all her bags disappeared. He stood up and grabbed her by the arm and took off running, as lightning flashed, and rain poured on them.
Remus sprinted down the empty road, his left hand clutching her wand, in his right, her arm. He was dragging her along, muttering to himself. "Come on!" he yelled, thunder roared again. And as if it couldn't get any worse, the rain slowly progressed into hail. Remus finally stopped at a brick wall, the entrance and exit to Diagon Alley. He tapped the third brick over a small signpost, and pulled her inside the pub.
Their disheveled appearance made several people raise eyebrows at them. 'And' Artemis thought, 'I could see why.' Noting the blood running down her cheek and then newly ripped knees of her jeans, and Remus, drenched in water and clutching a wand as if for his life. He pulled her by the arm through the pub and stopping at the bar.
"Thom, where's Dumbledore?"
The old bartender answered, "Mr. Lupin what happened to you and the young miss?"
"There's a really bad storm outside, I really need to see Dumbledore."
"He's in tearoom four."
"Thanks," Remus said, and once again he began pulling Artemis through the restaurant by the arm. It seemed to Artemis that Remus didn't realize that he was gripping her arm; it was only after a particularly hard pull that made Artemis say, "Ow!" that he let go and apologized. He looked so different now, his formerly neat hair was dripping wet and plastered to his forehead, and his robes, which were patched and frayed before were splattered with mud, and also dripping. Remus approached an oak door with a brass number four on it, he knocked rather hard, and his knock was replied by a gentle, "Come in Remus."
"Dumbledore," Remus said walking in the door. Artemis followed, when her eyes adjusted to the brightly lit room, she noticed that Dumbledore wasn't alone.
'That's her?' Thought Hermione, 'That is the heiress to the Elves? Look at her! Remus must be wrong.'
"Hi," said Artemis to Hermione, clearly she was confused on my Hermione was there.
"Artemis," said Dumbledore, "This is Hermione Granger, she'll be one of your tutors for the rest of the summer."
"Hi Artemis, I'm Hermione," and she stuck out her hand for Artemis to shake.
"Now," said Dumbledore, "What happened to the two of you?"
"Storm," muttered Remus, still looking rather vexed. Author's Note: You doing that thing you do/ breaking my heart into a million pieces/ like you always do/ and you don't mean to be cruel/ you never even knew about the heartache/ I've been going through/ and I try and try to forget you girl/ but it's just so hard to do/ every time you do that thing you do/ I know all the games you play/ I'm gonna find a way to let you know that/ you'll be mine someday/ 'cause we will be happy can't you see/ if you'd only let me be the one to hold you/ and keep you here with me/ and it hurts me so just to see you go/ around with someone new/ 'cause if I now you/ you're doing that thing you do.
Artemis shook Hermione's hand, but regretted soon after noticing that she had blood on her hands.
"Now," said Dumbledore, "You two should get cleaned up." And with a wave of his wand both Remus and Artemis were clean and dry, even the knees of her jeans were repaired. Author's Note: Don't you love the song ThatThing You Do!? I do, anyway it is August 6th, and I have horrible writer's block still. Anyway, I want to go see Without a Paddle, my dad saw it two days ago and said it was hilarious. I can't think of anything to write.
"Mum, I'm going out!" shouted Paris from the front hall, "Be back in a little while." Paris left number Seven and walked down Privet Drive, unaware that he was taking the exact same path his sister did a few days prior. Author's Note: Welcome to Chapter 8 of the series. I'm glad that you've made it this far. Paris was walking down the street humming to himself, obviously very pleased, 'All those losers,' he thought, 'like I'd ever let them get near Artemis, she doesn't even like them. Oh well, I'm doing her a favor, the creepy stalkers.' He made his way across the street to a small park, and saw Harry sitting on one of the swings, throwing rocks at the adjacent slide. Paris heard him muttering to himself, and with a loud yell he threw a rock as hard as he could at the plastic slide, leaving a large dent.
"You're really going to need some anger management," Paris commented, walking over to examine the dent.
"What do you want?" Harry shot, clearly not too happy to see Paris.
"I can come to a park if I want."
"Fine suit yourself." Harry said and sat back down on the swing.
"What's your problem?"
"This place sucks," Harry said, and Paris's eyes lit up.
"That was the exact thing I said when we first got here," suddenly willing to be more tolerant of Harry.
"Yeah, I hate it here. I can't wait until my friend gets here so I can leave."
"You're leaving? When?"
"As soon as humanly possible."
"Well why do you want to leave, I guess that it can be okay, you just need to A) get a girlfriend; or B) go to a boarding school to get out of this place for nine months."
"Yeah, I have letter B down, and I was working on A until I found out that the girl I liked had a boyfriend."
"You go to a boarding school? Which one?"
"Umm..." Harry hesitated before saying, "St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys," he looked down at the ground, willing himself not to check for a reaction.
"No way, how did you land yourself in there?" to Harry's surprise Paris didn't sound afraid or awkward after hearing that he went to a juvenile detention center, on the contrary, he sounded impressed, possibly amazed.
"Armed robbery," Harry said fishing for something that would further amaze Paris.
"That's awesome! Did they do a police chase? Did you have to go in one of those line up things? Where did you rob? How did they catch you-?"
"One question at a time please," Harry felt worried, this was too much. How was he supposed to make up so many answers? And what if Paris told Artemis about this?
"Okay, first question then, did they do a police chase? Either on foot, or a car chase."
"No, there was no chase. Forensics brought me in, by uh...fingerprinting."
"Dumb ass, you didn't wear gloves?"
"I don't know how they did it, but I did have gloves. I didn't have to do a lineup, they knew it was me."
"What type of weapon?"
"Hockler MS semi-automatic." Harry thought he was home free is Paris didn't realize that he took the name of a gun from a video game.
"Where the hell did you get a semi automatic?"
"Internet," 'Yes,' Harry thought, 'he didn't notice.'
"That's insane, where did you rip off?"
"Wasn't anything big," said Harry casually, "An electronic store."
"An electronic store? What for, did you need a new CD player or something?"
"No, I didn't waste my time on petty appliances, I went for the register. If I had enough time I would have went for the safe. But disabling the security system took longer than I meant it to."
"That's insane, and it only got you in a .... military school? You ripped off a store after breaking and entering with a semi-automatic weapon? How they hell did you get your way out of that one?"
"Luck, I guess. I just was really lucky," Harry, his lies coming out so much easier now. 'He'll never be able to tell.'
"That's insane," Paris said glancing down at his watch, "hey I gotta go. It was really cool talking to you." He got up and began to walk away, when he got to the sidewalk he stopped and turned back around and asked, "When you said 'I was working on A until I found out that the girl I liked had a boyfriend,' did you mean Artemis?"
"Huh?" Harry felt embarrassed now, "yeah, it actually was. I was just wondering, what is her boyfriend's last name?"
"Marsh," said Paris, thinking of Stan, "He lives somewhere near London. They met when we used to live there."
"You used to live in London?"
"Yeah, but only for about a year, then we moved to Scotland."
"How long were you living there?"
"Eight months."
"You move around a lot then?"
"Yeah, and it sucks. Anyway, bye." Paris turned and made his way back down the street.
Author's Note: Going down to South Park gonna have myself a time.
Friendly faces everywhere, humble folk without temptation.
Going down to South Park gonna leave my woes behind
Ample parking day or night, people shouting "Howdy neighbor!"
Going down to South Park gonna see if I can unwind.
Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy.
Going down to South Park to meet some friends of mine.
"So," said Dumbledore, "You two will be spending the night here, and tomorrow you're going to be going to Hogwarts. Is that alright?"
"Yes, sir," Artemis and Hermione said in unison, then looking at each other, they smiled. They had become better acquainted in the past hour.
"Well, we best be off," said Remus standing up, he also had become much happier in the past our. He and Dumbledore stood to leave, "Artemis," he said, "You're in room 9 and Hermione you're in room 10." He was nearly at the door, when he turned around and gave Artemis a hug. She was very surprised and could feel herself blushing. Remus let her go and followed Dumbledore out the door, closing it behind him.
"What was that?" Hermione asked while laughing, "You should see you face!" Artemis walked over to the mirror that was hanging on the wall, her face was crimson.
"So, why did Dumbledore pick you to help me?"
"I don't know," Hermione said trying to be modest; she knew why he picked her. "Uh, shall we go to our rooms then? There's not much to do here, and we can't go outside because it's still storming."
"I guess," said Artemis picking up her wand that Remus left on the table. "So, you're really going to go to school three months before you have to?"
"Yeah, but it's not a problem, I love the school. And I'm hoping that since I'm there early I might be able to get my O.W.L results sooner. Everyone is getting them in July, and I don't think I can wait that long."
"O.W.L's, as in the bird?"
"No, O.W.L's stand for Ordinary Wizarding Levels. Professor Dumbledore said that you'll be taking yours around Christmas. Until then you're going to have to join up in all the regular sixth year classes. But you shouldn't have any trouble catching up on your work, not with you being an Elf and all."
"Oh, Dumbledore told you that I'm an Elf?"
"Yeah, but don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Anyway, I'm kind of jealous because Elves are supposed to be amazing at Charms and Transfiguration; Ancient Runes too, which you're really lucky because the class is really hard," Hermione said as they began to ascend the stairs. "They're good at Ancient Runes because a lot of the Runes are in an old Elven language."
"I don't know any Elvish, so I don't think I'd do well in a class like that."
"No, you see Half Elves are kind of like Parsel Tongues, they can speak a language without realizing it. Also, like with their ears; Elves have pointy ears, Pure Elves are born with them, but Half Elves obtain them when the reach maturity. So, you should be getting pointy ears fairly soon, you should in fact be getting most of your Elven powers very soon. Well, good night."
"Wait!" said Artemis, she didn't want Hermione to go, and she wanted her to continue. "What else do you know about Elves? I've never heard any of this before. I know nothing about Half Elves."
"Is this an opening for me to explain, a chance for me to express my knowledge without sarcastic comment?" Artemis nodded, fascinated about wheat she knew about Elves. "Alright then, but inside here," she said opening the door to number nine, "We don't want to be overheard." Artemis walked into the room, and Hermione followed.