Completed: 4/19/2005 8:00 PM
Posted: 4/19/2005 9:30 PM
A/N: Sorry about last chapter guys, didn't mean to confuse you by talking in the third person. I'm Katzy, just fyi.
Next Chapter: Expect it to be WAY long. And since my novel officially is boring me to death, the chapter might be finished in a week. Or perhaps I'll get my butt back in gear and catch up the eleventy billion words I'm behind already. Who knows.
Dastardly Plug: 1) If you haven't checked out the story I'm hosting, Destiny's Embers, do it NOW! 2) New, way-totally original story is about to be brought to an near you. It's my newest obsession (which I forced onto Meg in DE): Hermiriames Hermione x Sirius x James. Even if that doesn't float your boat, read it the fuck anyways 'cuz I guarantee her time traveling reasons/application have never been used before.
A/N2: Did someone ask for multiple Remus x Hermione scenes? 'Cuz they're here.
NOTE (4/28/2005) – Due to persnicketyness by the song 'Fever' and its lyrics were removed from the chapter. A"s--" will denote where the lyrics once were. I think the story lost a good piece of it to this, but it can't be helped.
Hermione ran from the other side of the door as fast as she could. She didn't want to hear what they had to say or sing; didn't want to feel that head-splitting pain wrenching through her chest again. Not anymore. She stumbled into the common door, fumbling in her hurry to get it open, only to finally fling it open and run blindly into the arms of Draco Malfoy.
"Oh, look..." he drawled. Fingers convulsed around her upper-arms with crushing force. "It's my date..."
"Let go, Malfoy," she growled through her teeth.
He sneered. "Or you'll call Potter? Looks to me like you wanted out of your 'friends' company pretty bad."
Seeing as how there was a very good possibility that either or both of them might suddenly just burst into song, Hermione really wanted to be somewhere else. "Isn't that what drives every other girl into your arms?" she scoffed. "Desperation?"
"Go ahead Granger..." his voice slithered silkily into her ear and just its tone made her feel violated. "I know you want to. Let's see this 'power' of yours..."
Hermione stiffened – a total locking up of her body – and Malfoy laughed maliciously. "It could be our little secret," he coaxed. "It won't even make the papers this time."
She looked defiantly up into his face, though internally she was cursing her own short height, and flipped the switch in her head that wiped clean all the emotions from her expression. Malfoy sensed the sudden change in her, but the only sign of his sudden alertness was the tightening on her arms and the all but imperceptible narrowing of his ice blue eyes.
"Back. Off." She hissed out.
"And what if I don't?" His challenge was darkly serious now, and it frightened Hermione how badly he wanted her to use her magic. But she wasn't about to give him that – she just wanted to get away.
"I'll scream," she swore vehemently. She turned up her nose at him and said in as superior a voice as she could manage, "Then who'll be the one in trouble?"
He might have had a threat coming, but they were both interrupted from their deadly staring match by a hooting owl that came swooping in through the window and began flapping madly around Hermione's head – wings catching in her frizzied curls. Malfoy snarled and shoved her back as he let go of her arms and she tripped backwards into the wall as a result of it, clutching her letter in her hands.
"Halloween's not over yet, Granger," he warned before stalking out of the common room.
When the door at last clicked shut behind him, Hermione let out a long, shuddering breath and was glad for the wall's cool weight at her back serving to sooth her nerves. She wasn't sure what Malfoy was after – who was? – but without a doubt it would not bode well for her. She picked at the edge of the unsealed parchment as her thoughts played leap-frog around her mind, and then finally settled on thinking about Malfoy's behavior later.
The letter, her chosen topic of thought distraction, proved wholly unhelpful. The letter was totally blank frontways and back. She continued to stare at it in confusion until she noticed a spell contained in the parchment had levitated her locket up from underneath her blouse and into the open air. Eyes crossing slightly in the effort to look down at it so close, she watched it turn onto its belly and reflect the inscription up at her.
The wrenching feeling was back in her heart, and Hermione groaned, cupping the golden locket with her fingers. If it was possible, she only felt worse. Why did Remus have to be so...perfect.
Sighing heavily, she tucked the necklace carefully back under the collar of her uniform and headed for the hallway. Her encounter with Malfoy had ironically served a useful purpose, as in his parting line he'd reminded her that her potion still remained to be picked up from the Room of Requirements.
And at least neither of them had started singing.
Hermione returned twenty minutes later with the entire cauldron shrunken down into a single flask and tightly stoppered. She carried it through her bedroom with slow deliberateness and a protective hold on the top and bottom of the glass, though asll these precautions and minutiae seemed a bit excessive when the liquid in the flask looked to be nothing more "magical" than ordinary tap water.
She had planned on returning as quietly as possible, but while she was preoccupied with the potion, the heavy door joining her room to the Heads' common room drifted closed on its own with a noticeable bang! Hermione winced.
Setting the flask on her work table, she pulled out the white cube from its floorboards beneath her bed and set it down near the middle of the room. A tap opened the top side like a lid and she scrounged around inside with three fingers until she pulled a bookshelf effortlessly out with a yank. It hovered there, above the cube, for her to pull the books she needed and then give it the tap that would send it back inside. She pulled a few more things out in the same fashion before closing the lid and tucking it into a nook on her workbench.
She'd barely set down to work when there was a knock on her door. She contemplated for half a second over not answering, but the decision was made for her.
"Hermione – it's me."
Now that was not fair – she no reason to be upset with Harry. Most importantly, she couldn't not let him in, simply for the reason that it was Harry. Her Harry.
Making sure the burner under the flask wasn't too hot, she pushed back her chair and walked to the door. A deep breath and she was ready to open the door.
Harry gave her a stern look when she did and promptly shoved a resisting Remus straight into her, knocking them both back into the room.
"You two are going to work this out, and you can't come out until you do," he declared firmly, then slammed the door. "And don't even think of trying to escape," he yelled through it. "Lily's at the other door!"
A sheepish Lily said "Sorry guys" from the other end of the room.
Hermione threw out a hand and was cruelly avenged as the door bowed out of its frame and whapped Harry on the nose, who cried out in pain. She let the wood bounce back to its original shape and looked up at Remus kneeling over her. They both flushed and he quickly crawled off and stood up offering her a hand. Hermione got up on her own, readjusting her reading glasses that had gotten skewed in the sudden attack.
"I have work to do," she muttered pink-faced, and reseated herself primly in her chair.
Remus hovered uncertainly in the corner of her vision, but not particularly in her way, and the fact that he wasn't annoying annoyed her. The thermometer stuck through the stopper was filling with two many numbers and she forcefully turned the gas crank to lower the burner's flame. She looked up the needed page in one of her books and seeing as it was written in Italian Hermione wasn't too worried about him trying to read over her shoulder. As per the book's instructions, she prepared an ice bath for the potion to go into when it was done slowly boiling.
When Remus pulled up a chair beside her, unobtrusively reading her Transfiguration textbook, Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. "You can leave you know," she said, trying to look occupied.
"That's alright," he said quietly. Hermione wouldn't meet his eyes.
"We're not going to talk," she said a bit smartish-ly. Her anxiety was rising each moment they were alone together. One more ditty between them and she wouldn't have any secrets left.
"That's your choice," he answered, calmly looking back down at his reading.
Hermione stopped mid-word in the notes she'd been copying and threw down her quill and tore off her glasses. "Can you just stop being perfect and understanding for one minute!" She exclaimed hotly.
Remus closed the book and shook his head. "I don't want to fight with you." The sincerity in his voice brought back that wrenching feeling. Her defense mechanism involved a lot of yelling and hand gestures.
"Well, maybe I do want to fight!" She exclaimed childishly and totally unfairly.
The only crime Remus had committed was being perfect. 'Perfect for her' she was forced to admit. Especially during this time when Hermione was being forced to do things she would never burden her friends by knowing, he didn't ask any questions. He didn't argue or yell at her, act offended by her silence, or press where he wasn't wanted. She had told herself night after night that nothing could happen with any of them; Remus had never confronted her with his feelings until a no-longer-amusing musical spell had forced it out of him. That made him perfect too. He was kind and quick-witted, honest and intelligent. Not only could he stand being in the library for more than five minutes, he enjoyed going there. He liked reading.
"You think I'm perfect?" He asked with a bit of a smile.
"That's not the point," she huffed. But she'd blushed pink all the way up to the tips of her ears, doing the Weasley family proud.
"Hermione...I didn't mean to tell you like that," he insisted apologetically.
"Oh yeah, note to self: I'm killing all of you for this stupid spell!"
She slammed her book down on the table and the entire thing rattled her potion bottle angrily. Taking into consideration the amount of time she'd invested in said potion, she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "Look, Remus...I enjoy being with you and I value your friendship, but that's it," she insisted.
"No..." He reached out for her and she let him, holding her breath as he gently pulled the chain out from beneath her uniform's collar. He opened the locket and the projection of the picture inside appeared between them. "We were better than 'just friends'," he said gently. "And that was before I'd even gotten here..."
Hermione's throat closed up as she watched the movie, completely ensnared. She hadn't even realized how often she'd watched this photo play itself over and over again and wonder what had happened to that happy life she'd led only so short a time ago. Remus had been more than just a friend, and they had in fact been close in a way that most people wouldn't have been able to understand given their ages and societal differences. But, oh, they'd been so much more alike than that. Their losses had been great and they had found solace in each others' kindred spirits. His birthday party had probably been the only time they'd both been truly happy since Sirius' death.
The werewolf's death had hit her harder than she remembered thinking it would. With Harry on one side, Ron on the other, and Ginny owling her every day from home she still had felt completely and irreparably alone. Sometimes, when the sorrow seemed greatest, she would sneak down into the parlor where they'd always shared tea and cry into his favorite chair. She'd often asked herself if this was how he had felt when he became the last Marauder; when his closest friends had all passed on and left him behind to deal with the world alone. The thought that he'd probably believed himself the least deserving of such a long life only made her cry harder into the soaked corduroy of the chair.
She'd made herself be the one to pack his meager belongings away, yelling outright when someone suggested they be given away. They'd never been much, but whatever he'd managed to keep with him had been things of importance, that meant something. They were his things.
If he wasn't able to keep them safe any longer, than she would be the one to do it because she couldn't bear to see that picture of Sirius he'd kept on his nightstand thrown in the trash or stripped of its frame, see the watch Lily had given him for his fourteenth birthday – too long broken to be of any use – pawned away. So she packed up everything, sealed each item tightly inside their boxes, and placed them safely inside the closet of her bedroom at Grimmauld. When she had finished the emotionally-devastating process, she remembered falling to her knees in front of the closet that held everything that was Remus and sobbing into her hands. She'd cried hoping that he'd found James and Lily, Sirius, and even poor misguided Peter. But still knowing they were all happy and whole again...it didn't make her hurt any less.
She restrained herself from reaching up to touch all of their laughing faces, but the hole that was perhaps forever in her heart burned and made itself known again even as the tears burned down her cheeks.
That had been her last perfect moment.
"Oh, please don't cry Hermione. I didn't mean to make you sad," Remus begged, taking her face in his hands and wiping softly at the saline tracks. "I only want you to be happy..."
The tears flowed harder at this, but she didn't make any noise to accompany those long withheld tears. Her throat felt too tight to speak through, but she made the attempt – lips sticking together as she opened her mouth to form the words. "You do make me happy..." Her voice rasped. "I-I don't want you to leave again..."
Remus knew she was referring to the death of his future self, but didn't take offense by it. She was blinking her eyes rapidly beneath his fingertips trying to staunch the flood of crystal droplets rolling from her lashes. "I won't leave if you don't make me, Hermione."
She shuddered under his hands and pulled away. "I have to," she choked, clearing her throat to try and dispel its tight hoarseness.
"We're good friends, Hermione, but I can do better than that." Remus' voice was evenly serious.
"This isn't some spell you're trying to perfect in Charms," said Hermione. "You can keep trying, but this is a spell that doesn't want to be cast. Maybe it just wants you to give up and go and try some other one."
She valiantly tried to focus on her work, quill clenched near the breaking point in her hand, but her face was tilted back into looking at warm blue-gray eyes. "Maybe the spell has just been waiting for a wizard in shining robes to come and try hard enough to cast it, but just doesn't know it yet. Maybe the spell's just being silly..." Remus offered.
"Maybe the wizard is too stubborn for his own good," she mumbled back half-heartedly, looking down.
Remus waited for her to bravely lift her eyes back up, and she saw the subtle sadness that lined the smooth planes of his face even before he began to speak words that hit her more forcefully than she'd imagined. "I meant what I said...and if you want to go back to the way things were then that's what we'll do," he said quietly, looking at her caringly through sandy bangs.
Heart wrench after heart wrench.
"But..."
Hermione bit back her breath.
"Please let me keep holding your hand?"
It was the only thing he'd ever asked of her – something so simple and so utterly Remus that she nearly began to cry again. Peering fixatedly into her watery eyes, he cautiously found the hand lying limply across her lap and inched his fingers beneath it. Hermione lifted it slowly – just enough for his hand to slip beneath hers – and closed her eyes as warm fingers twined with her own. Her heartbeat quickened waiting for her to breathe and she tentatively squeezed Remus' hand.
He didn't hesitate to squeeze back.
A long breath escaped her lips; longer than it took her to open her eyes again. Her head tipped unconsciously upwards and she had a thought that Remus hadn't been so close where she could smell the earthy smell that was the wolf inside him a moment ago.
The timer she'd set earlier went off with a high-pitched muggle ding and her eyes slid to the side to glance at the large clock hanging on her wall. It was six o'clock. Remus chuckled softly and surprised her by leaning forward as she'd imagined him doing a second ago and kissing her lightly on the cheek.
"You have to get ready for the ball..." he told her.
She nodded distantly. "Lily and Gin will be waiting for me," she murmured.
Remus smiled and wiped away the last bead of moisture that had caught in her eyelashes then stood up. "Well let's get you up there then."
He waited for her to move the potion to the ice bath with one hand and then grab her dress box off the bed before leading her across the room. Each step, Hermione wanted to drag her feet – however ill-mannered it was – wishing to stop that door from getting any closer. Reach it they did, however, and wordlessly they pulled back their hands, fingertips lingering close together before breaking all contact completely.
"Save me a dance..." he whispered hopefully.
"Always."
Like a gentleman he opened the door for her and she thanked him, stepping out into the common room. Harry, who'd been sitting with his back to the wall next to the door, quickly scrambled to his feet looking a bit wary as if she'd try and hex him any moment. Ron looked up from the couch where he was picking up a game of Wizards Chess, and Sirius was beside him going over the Quidditch play book until he looked up at them too.
"It was Ron's idea!" Harry blurted out, immediately shielding his face with his arms as if he'd anticipated a blow.
"You're all too dramatic," she addressed the room. "Now, I have to go get ready or Gin will do something drastic."
With a sweep of her black school robes, the young witch was hurrying up the girls' stairs, white dressbox tucked under her arm. The odd sounds they caught in their range of hearing were identified as Ginny's annoyed yelling when the door to the 6th year dorm opened above them and Hermione hurried inside.
Nearly two hours and a great deal of painful hair-styling later, Hermione was following Ginny downstairs with Lily behind her. Together they made a nice line of blue, gold, and red, up the girls' stairs. There was a bright flash before Hermione even made it off the stairs and she was blinking back stars as James' camera spit out the picture.
"Everyone's going to be so flipping jealous of our women," he said proudly, handing off the picture to Harry who began implementing the absolutely necessary process of blowing impatiently and shaking wildly the still-developing picture.
"And look at Little Red," Sirius cajoled throwing an arm over a boldly beautiful Ginny's bare shoulders. "She's all growed up and looking like James' Red."
"A bloody morphing butterfly she is," James agreed with a sage nod, craning his neck to kiss Lily's temple.
"Everyone wait right here," Hermione instructed still blinking like she had a spasmodic twitch as she tried to get read of the odd light patterns still bobbing in front of her eyes from the camera flash. "I have to get my gloves."
Lily already had her black ones pulled on up to her elbows and Ginny had opted for black as well, but Hermione had left hers in her bureau drawer. She slipped into her bedroom after a quickly whispered password and standing with her back pressed to the closed door, she stared at the potion waiting for her.
When Hermione reappeared a few moments later, it was with simple white satin gloves up her forearms and a smile on her face. "Let's make sure everyone's here."
The majority of the assembled group rolled their eyes, but cooperatively stood still as she went down the line touching their shoulders and counting them all off. When she got to seven and Harry, she groaned and tutted motherly at him. "Didn't I show you how to do this just a few days ago?" She sighed in exasperation and began redoing the bowtie that looked as though he'd fed it to a hungry hippogriff.
"Thanks mum," said Harry cheekily.
Ron snickered and she sent them both irate looks. "Well kids, you go and have fun. I'll meet you down there."
"Going off to face the big bad dragon? I sympathize," Ginny said.
"If he tries anything..." Harry started threateningly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I have your permission to 'beat the bloody pulp out of him'? Thanks for that," she snorted derisively. "If you hadn't told me I might have just let him do whatever he pleased..."
Remus coughed into his hand, but the others weren't as discreet in their laughter, guffawing outright at the glaring Harry as Hermione made sympathetic faces at the butt of the joke.
"Damnit Granger, HURRY UP!"
Growling in annoyance, Hermione picked up her gold skirts and jogged for her room in thankfully low heels. "HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET INTO MY ROOM?" She yelled back, leaving the others to shake their heads.
"YOU LEFT THE DAMN DOOR OPEN!"
"YOU PONCE! GET OUT!"
The door slammed shut over much more muffled yelling, and with no sign of it ending soon James shrugged and lead the way out into the hall to join the growing throng of muggle-dressed students filtering down to the Great Hall; a sea of black and white with smatterings of bright color from the witches.
Given the state they'd left them in, the septet was shocked, as was the school, when the Head Boy and Girl came down the grand staircase, her arm resting over his and bright smiles on their faces. The crowd parted with no difficulty whatsoever to make way for the Heads to ceremonially open the large doors. They both pushed at the center and the two slabs of wood swung open revealing the completely redesigned Hall.
As the theme was a New York night club, the walls were painted dark, the floor polished wood and the magically weather-oriented ceiling had been convinced to turn solid for once and from the rafters hung great huge spotlights and strobes and spheres that slashed great whirling streaks of color across the room. On one wall was a bar at which Rosmerta had taken up a post, closing the Three Broomsticks early to come and help out, and on the dais which hitherto had supported the teacher's table now served as the set-up platform for a plethora of magically animated instruments. Loud House music was blaring throughout the spacious hall.
As soon as Hermione and Draco stepped across the threshold however, the music died out and the scene began to change. White marble covered the walls and great stone pillars built themselves up out of the corners. The floors turned back to stone and the lights overhead all dimmed save for one blaring white spotlight fixated on the pair. A slender golden tiara appeared in the curls Ginny had piled atop Hermione's head and a thicker crown materialized on Draco's head.
Moving to the room's center – both all smiles – Draco bowed gallantly, she curtsied, and he took her hand as a flowing waltz began emanating from the string section of the band. Hands, smiles, and magical headpieces firmly in place the two started their inaugural dance, waltzing across the palace ballroom.
All eyes were on them; students and staff alike. Hermione looked as though there wasn't any place she'd rather be as Draco spun her around and around again, and he was smiling at her in a way that made it look as though they felt no one but they were in the room. It was amazing and absolutely frightening all in one.
Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy did not get along. Ever.
But there they were...just...waltzing away...
When the song ended to much applause from the waiting audience, Hermione and Draco curtsied and bowed, respectively, and lead each other off the main section of the dance floor and out of the spotlight with great big smiles and waves, like something out of a Miss America pageant. As soon as they were in the shadows however, the both of them flung away from the other as if they carried some disgustingly contagious disease and quickly moved as far away from one other as possible, each seeking out their own personal groups.
A new rousing House beat started up that made the restored wooden floors thrum and the walls shake as the lights exploded back across them again. Hermione reached up tentatively and found that her tiara had disappeared from whence it had come. Perhaps it was for the best – no need to match Malfoy all night.
She found her fellow Gryffindors hovering near the bar so Seamus and Ron could flirt up Madame Rosmerta and was promptly received by gratuitous applause. Rubbing at her cheek, she opened and shut her mouth a few times before wailing that she'd "broken her jaw" smiling like that.
"That was pretty 'freaky deaky'," James said bluntly. "With the spinning and the smiling and such..."
"You noticed that too, huh?" she replied, dryly and had to duck to avoid a good-natured swing. "Nice job on the place, though," she laughed.
James puffed out his chest, despite Lily's reprimanding swat to his stomach, and boasted, "I take all the credit."
"As if! Keep your pride tucked, Potter," Sirius scoffed, stepping in on the conversation. He winked roguishly at Hermione and she was immensely relieved inside that he was at least acting like his normal self. "Can't animate inanimates to save his life," he stage-whispered conspiratorially to Hermione. She laughed behind her hand and James looked affronted.
"Hey! A lot of people can't, all right?" He defended.
"Aww, Jamsie-bear," Lily cooed – taking a piece of the action herself. "You don't have to be ashamed about your widdle problem."
"I assure you there is nothing bloody 'little' about me," he proclaimed, if a bit shrilly. His date promptly boxed him on the ear and clapped a gloved hand over his mouth as he cried out in pain.
"James Francis Potter!" She reprimanded.
Hermione bit down on her lip to keep from laughing. 'Francis!' she mouthed to Sirius, who snorted with restrained laughter.
"There are impressionable youth here," she concluded.
"Aw, come on Lils," he complained through her fingers. "Sirius has heard it before."
"HEY!"
"All three of you get on the dance floor now, before you hurt yourselves," Hermione laughed, shoving the lot of them into the crowd only to be promptly shoved forward herself by another set of hands.
"You really ought to take your own advice more often, 'Mione."
Hermione whirled around into Ron's broad chest and rubbed ruefully at her banged nose. "Ow, Ron!" She was choosing to blame him for her impromptu whirling causing her a knocked-into face. "What's with the shoving?"
"Didn't 'spect that the shover would become the shovee, didja?" He teased. "Constant vigilance!"
"I am not going to dance with you if you keep up those Mad-Eye impressions." She sniffed and lifted her nose – which she swore was now lopsided – haughtily into the air.
"Time to dance," he said as the songs switched. "And I promise no more impressions."
The both of them walking to a more open space, they watched and waited as the room switched to fit the new song. The walls bleached to a bright, sunny Spanish yellow and the ceiling lit up like a summer day. The instruments blared out a fast paced beat and the pulsing mob of students began dancing wildly.
Ron grabbed her hips and they began a slightly altered cha-cha dance, expertly weaving in and out of other pairings.
He gave her a suspicious look. "How do you know this dance – you didn't come to the school lesson? A mandatory one I might add."
"I was with Dumbledore," she answered flippantly. "Besides, I learned how to ballroom dance when I was six."
The lanky boy raised an eyebrow. "Impressive."
"They did an impressive job, didn't they," Hermione pointed out, looking out over his shoulder at everything. "Sorry I didn't need your help after all."
"Dun worry 'bout it. You make a lovely girl by the way..."
Hermione looked down at her dress, glittering with beads across her chest and waist, lacing up the sides, and trailing across the floor, before it began to change to fit the song. She supposed she did look rather decent. And then she was wearing a bright rainbowish, flowery summer dress with a stiff skirt and a bright hibiscus flower tucked into her curls.
Ron had been not so fortunate in his wardrobe change and now sported seriously wide-legged black trousers and one of those blue shirts with the ruffles on the sleeves. Hermione had to stop dancing she was laughing so hard.
"Oh, sod off. This is Yule Ball all over again," he griped, picking dejectedly at a cheery ruffle while he waited for Hermione to collect herself. "I'm not ever dancing with you again, ya know."
"I'm sorry," she gasped, holding the back of her hand over her mouth just short of touching. She held out her arms to him for them to start dancing again, though her shoulders kept shaking from residual laughter and her cheeks were a healthy rose-pink. "You look...fine. It doesn't matter."
"You sound like you're feeling better..." he mused, pushing her forward slightly and getting them both on tempo.
She rolled her eyes, falling into step with her new strappy sandals. "As long as I never have to sing ever again in my whole entire life. Ever," she stressed.
"Nothing good came out of it?" the red-head pressed with a grin. Hermione, to her credit, gave him a Malfoy-worthy dirty look. "I'm just saying...why are you dancing with me, when Lupin is sitting at the bar?"
"You SHOVED me onto the dance floor!" Hermione exclaimed, earning the pair quite a few surprised looks. Still she couldn't help the quick expository look over her shoulder towards the direction of Rosmerta's bar. "Besides, I'm planning on dancing with everyone."
"First off: I only shoved in retribution for those you unjustly shoved beforehand. Secondly, you are totally full of shit."
"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione gaped; sounding uncannily like Lily had only a dozen or so minutes earlier. More looks.
"I'm your blood mate," he winked. "I know these things."
"Don't let it go to your head," she mumbled, turning slightly pink. Telling Harry she thought they were soul mates when she thought they'd never see each other again was one thing. Belting out to Ron that they were blood mates in the middle of a sassy pop number was a completely other story entirely.
Then the song ended and she was being handed off to Harry for a tango as the lights dimmed to dusty red and all the walls and floors darkened. Whatever spell that was working the transmogrification deemed her original gown decent enough to tango in, though the poofy tulle skirts beneath the silk disappeared and the dress became more svelte. Harry lost his tie, which was a benefit to him, and the line of buttons on his shirt got a tinsy bit of ruffle, but nothing so bad as what Ron had gone through.
He grabbed her hand and waist in the traditional tango-position and led her straight across the dance floor with dramatic flourish. "Too many clubs in New York that they couldn't pick just one?" he joked.
"I suppose so," Hermione agreed, though she was getting slightly dizzy with all the sharp turns.
"Guess they've got people of every flavor in New York." He dipped her down and her lips were suddenly pressed around a long-stemmed rose.
She spit it out with a disgusted sound, while Harry laughed heartily and steered them around the disappearing flora. "I thought the men did the flower-teethy thing."
"Well, Lily did say you were unfeminine," he reminded her.
Hermione jerked her head slightly. "Do you see this hair? A painfully long process forced upon me, okay. I have the femme hair at least; in no small part due to Ginny attacking me with her wand and a good deal of pins."
Time flew by as Hermione moved between dance partners. She danced to more House music with the other girls and Gwen, attempted a swing dance with Neville to the distress of her trodden-feet, slow-danced with Sirius and then Harry again, and was snatched by James for a rowdy foxtrot. Somewhere in the middle of all of this she managed to get one glass of the customary punch – which she hoped hadn't been inappropriately altered so early in the evening – and stopped by Snape, supervising with a surly attitude, to thank him for the ingredients he'd begrudgingly given her.
Thanking Terry Boot, the Ravenclaw prefect, for the lovely dance with a quick hug and quicker word to say hello to Hannah, his date, she watched him walk away and sighed. Rubbing her sore neck, she turned around at the tap on her shoulder and came face to face with Remus.
"May I still have that dance?"
Hermione glanced around at the darkness that was descending around them then down at her feet, shifting them anxiously as shiny black tiles spread out across the wood floor. Blue spotlights appeared along the seams of the walls and floor, casting eerie glows on the tile. She could see her face reflected back at her.
"You like jazz?" She asked, gesturing to the shadowed ambiance.
"Love it," Remus answered, taking her hand. He spun her sharply around and into the center of the dance floor and its dusty blue spotlight.
The bulky mass of her gold gown changed into a tight black dress with a diagonally cut hem at her knees that billowed up around her thighs in her spin. Remus's jacket and bow-tied shirt were traded in for a more sensual silk shirt in crimson red that felt cool and smooth beneath her fingertips.
The tempo began with low, twanging bass strings and the bodiless sound of fingers snapping coming from somewhere within the throng of instruments. They were totally within the centre of the dancers when they began to walk after one another in a circle – Remus' hands settling high on her waist.
s--
Sliding her palms down her sides she found his hands and pulled herself by them against his chest, forcing his arms to wrap around her.
s--
Hermione swayed her hips in time to the sultry music, her arms casually draped over his shoulders as the other dancers took their cue and grabbed partners of their own. In the dark blue spotlight, Hermione and Remus danced close together completely absorbed in their dance.
s--
Cymbals crashed and Hermione was spun outwards with a snap as the lights flashed to passion red. Curls were tumbling down out of Ginny's artful creation but they gave Hermione's face a softened look and showed more of the wild-sided girl Remus knew she hid. That same Hermione reached out with curling fingers and hooked them through one of the holes between his shirt's buttons. Their skin burned whenever it touched.
s--
Hermione took a step back and then another, each done with still a hint of the dance and a smooth sashay in her hips. Her hand on his shirt became taut and now with every step she took, she led him after her.
s--
Remus sped up his pace, and Hermione matched it – teasingly keeping just out of reach as the music accompanied their cat and mouse game. Then he reached up and slipped his hand beneath the one holding him and pulled her back in his direction. He gave the motion a subtle spin at the end, and a whirling-skirt Hermione spun like a top into his arms; her back to his chest and his arms crossed over her breasts.
s--
Hermione pulled away, growing frustrated with only the warm puff of his breath on her cheek and no face to look at as they danced. She was surprised when his hands automatically found their way to her hips and she was pulled back closer before she could attempt to do so herself. Remus didn't seem to be fully aware of what he was doing, and neither did Hermione as she placed her hands over his, interlocking their fingers.
s--
For a moment the spotlight they'd worked themselves back under was deep royal purple before it reverted wholly to its original blue, as the atmosphere of the hall cooled. The pair's dance had been reduced to nothing but swaying, twisting bodies yet it was enough.
s--
At the cymbal crash, Hermione was dipped back unexpectedly and her heart leapt into her throat. But Remus' strong hands were on her waist, holding her steady above the last few feet to the tile floor and his touch sent a calmness rushing through her.
s--
Slowly pulling her back up to rights as the last line echoed again and again and it wasn't until this thought that Hermione realized there had been no band there to sing the song. A hand slid up her back to cradle her head with considerate geniality, but when Hermione was able to look Remus properly in the eyes, the gleam in those gunmetal depths was far from 'genial'.
Hermione had thought it was hard to say what it was that made Remus so much more appealing than Sirius, or anyone else for that matter, but at that moment there was no doubt in her mind. It was the sure, caring hands on her back, the shaggy blonde-brown bangs that fell over his brow, the burning look in his eyes. It was simply Remus.
Her face tilted up slightly before she'd even recognized what the fluttering feeling in her stomach meant. Right there, in that moment, standing in the circle of light that cast them in blue hues the rest of the world faded away. In the safety of his arms, Hermione felt as though she could be as selfish as she'd longed to be. Time be damned, and to hell with anything looking even remotely like a 'rule'. Right now, she was just a girl. And maybe she was in love, but she was just standing there...begging a boy to kiss her.
The light was beginning to fade, her dress to melt back to normal. They were losing the moment. Hermione gripped his hands and lifted a bit onto the balls of her feet. How many times had they come this close? Hermione was aching to know what he tasted like.
"We can just go back," Remus whispered down into her upturned face. "Be just friends again. Whatever makes you happy."
Hermione smiled. He was sweeter than words and utterly perfect. "You idiot," she chuckled softly, the rush of the moment making her slightly giddy. "I'm happy here."
Remus gaped in surprise, only causing Hermione to beam wider at rendering him totally speechless. Then the backs of his fingers were brushing a stray tendril aside from her cheek and tilting her chin up to meet his mouth. Hermione's eyes fluttered shut, but the kiss never came.
Someone barreled into her with bruising velocity and a scream ricocheted off the walls. It took Hermione a half-second to realize it had been her own. As her attacker rode her to the ground, her head impacted with the unforgiving stone and her eyes snapped open with spots streaking across her vision.
Strong hands clamped down around her neck, squeezing out every last bit of oxygen, and as she choked and gasped, she reached up to try and pry the fingers from her neck only to stare in horror at the snarling wizard straddling her waist as he strangled her. Dark hair and bright green eyes.
"Ha...rry!" Hermione wheezed in disbelief.
"DIE MUDBLOOD WHORE!"
Oh, yeah...cliffhanger or what! Whacko-jacko!Harry will be explained next chapter, and I guarantee you'll never guess what's up. By the way, if you hadn't been keeping up – next chapter will probably be the last one. Then maybe an epilogue and that's it! TR's done!
Wowzers.
Just for funsies – Make some predictions for the final chapter.
