Chapter 9: New Premonitions
Hermione wandered into the kitchen and was surprised to see Ginny already up. "So tell me about your date last night," She grinned and motioned Hermione to sit down and spill the story. "I want to know all the intimate details," she said as Severus and Harry both walked in to eat.
"It was an interesting night," Hermione told her trying to keep her voice low. "We went back to his flat after dinner to watch a movie." She paused as she heard Harry snort in amusement and sent him an inquiring look.
"How much of the movie did you see? It would be kind of difficult to see the TV with his face attached to yours," He said amused.
"I will have you know that I could tell you exactly what happened in the movie thank you very much," she said with a fake huff before laughing. She then leaned closer to Ginny to finish the story. "He asked me to stay over last night."
"No!" Ginny said excited, "Did you?"
"Of course not!" Hermione told her friend, "I'm not ready for that type of relationship. I refuse to give myself to someone I'm not in love with. I actually had to lay down the ground rules for him. I told him there would be no touching below the clothing or below the waist. That was when he asked me to stay over with the lame line of wanting to wake up with me in his arms. He claimed he would miss me terribly when the team leaves and just wanted to be with me." The two girls laughed at the poor attempt to win her over.
"You would think he would realize that women are smarter than to fall for that," Ginny said shaking her head.
"Normal women are more intelligent than the ones that usually fawn all over the likes of Mr. Oliver Wood," Snape said putting his two cents worth in and verifying that anyone in the kitchen could hear their conversation. "I believe that your friends Miss Brown or Miss Patil would have fallen for it easily."
"Yes, it is quite distressing. We had nice intelligent conversations at first and now he is way more interested in exploring the inner working of my mouth with his tongue than talking about our lives. Boys suck." Hermione said with a pout as she dug into her breakfast.
"What are you going to do about it?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Nothing," she said with a bright smile. "He is leaving with Harry to start the world cup matches and I'll only be able to see him at the games. We will be going back to owling each other and things will be more to my tastes."
"So since you'll only see him once a week you can get your snogging done then and then write long intelligent letters to each other in between?" Harry asked with a smirk. "You've got to be the first person I've ever met who was looking forward to a long distance relationship."
"So you will be gone for weeks at a time during the season?" Snape asked Harry wondering why he hadn't heard about that arrangement.
"No, I'm going to apparate home most nights unless the distance is too far. I'll only be gone for the games that are off the continent." Harry told him, "I didn't want to be away from the Order that long as well as it keeps me mysterious."
"You just don't want to be away from Ginny for that long," Hermione said with a grin enjoying watching her friends blush. Gabrielle walked in then and sat down next to Hermione. "How you feeling this morning? Did you work everything out?"
"No, he never came back last night as far as I know. I waited for him until after midnight and then gave up and went to bed," Gabrielle said sadly. "If he doesn't talk to me soon he's going to be moving back into Malfoy Manor for the rest of the summer."
"I'm sure everything will work out," Hermione said wondering at the look that passed between Harry and Ginny as they overheard the conversation.
"Where is Draco this morning?" Severus asked the group.
"He had already left this morning with a note that he was going to visit his mother in France and check out the library there," Gabrielle told them all. "Didn't even bother to ask my opinion or if I wanted to go."
"You can come research in the lab with us today. You had mentioned you wanted to look through the potions texts again to see if you missed anything," Hermione said trying to cheer her up.
"There is an Order meeting tonight," Severus informed them all. "We will need to have extra rooms prepared and they will most likely be staying for dinner."
"I'll make sure Dobby and Winky are aware of it. Well I have to get to practice." Harry said as he hurried out of the kitchen, giving Ginny a quick kiss on his way.
"See, he shows her more love in one little gesture..." Gabrielle trailed off looking on the verge of tears again.
"Come on, head up straight. You are an amazingly intelligent person not to mention that you are fun to be around, have a great sense of humor, you're trustworthy and clever and that is all that you will need to find someone who will appreciate and love you. Now no more moping, it looks all wrong for a Veela to be sad. If he is making you this upset, then he is not worth it." Hermione said and was rewarded by a smile.
"Hermione is right as always," Severus told her. "You are the most promising student I've had in my house in years. If Draco is too immature to see that, then perhaps there are other avenues for you to pursue."
"Thank you sir, you don't know how much it means to have your support," Gabrielle said surprised at his words. She had always thought that Draco could do no wrong in his eyes.
"You will always have it," Snape said. "And remember that while we are all here this summer, I am just Severus a fellow order member. Now let's go up to the lab."
Ginny arrived at the ministry and was surprised when she was told her father wanted to see her first thing. She was even more surprised when Dumbledore was in the office with him and they had a full set of divination equipment laid out in front of them. She wondered if they were going to have her try and divine what Voldemort was planning at the moment.
"Hey hun," Arthur said giving his daughter a quick hug. "We were wondering if you would try and get a reading on the future for us. We are hoping to figure out if you-know-who has any plans that he is not sharing with Severus."
"I'll try my best," she said as she pulled the crystal ball toward her. "I haven't tried too much since I don't like seeing things that I can't change. I have had decent readings with the orb as well as very accurate tea leaf and tarrot card readings but since we don't want to ask the Dark Lord over for tea we'll have to settle on the orb." She focused on clearing her mind of all the daily chatter and worldly concerns and focused her powers on the orb in front of her willing it to reveal its secrets to her. "What am I to look for?"
"What do you see of Severus and Tom?" Albus asked her. "Can you see if Tom still trusts him and is telling him all his plans?"
Ginny focused her thoughts on Tom Riddle and Severus Snape. She saw Snape standing next to Voldemort surrounded by a small circle of Death Eaters. She saw as he punished all of them except for Snape and how all were bent down before him except Snape and Wormtail. "He fully trusts Severus." Ginny said and the image changed to one of Snape standing before Voldemort again, only this time there was a witch there as well and she was fake struggling against Snape but Ginny could tell she was leaning on him for support. There was a battle going on in the background, she realized it was the final battle. Voldemort went to curse the witch and Snape pushed her out of the way, exposing himself as a traitor. Voldemort was livid and went to curse Snape but something strange happened with the witch. She started to glow and her hair whipped around in an invisible breeze and Voldemort lowered his wand in fear of her. Ginny wondered why she couldn't tell who the witch was.
There was a knock on the door breaking Ginny's concentration and she looked to Albus with wide eyes willing him to take the information that she didn't understand how to process. She opened her mind up to him and offered him her vision. Albus was shocked as he saw part of the final battle. He didn't know what to make of it and wished that Arthur's secretary didn't interrupt her orb reading.
Ginny focused on the crystal ball again in hopes of learning more. She focused her energy on seeing the final battle. She reached out to the orb and went stiff and began to rise from her chair. She began to speak, "The Lord of the House of Snakes will become prince then king, and together with the Lion Heir Lord will unite the world using the power of their loves." Arthur caught her and settled her back in her chair waiting for her to come to after her prophesy. She groaned as she opened her eyes, "Why must I float while I prophesize? Can't I just give them while sitting safely in my seat?"
Dumbledore chuckled at the remarkable young woman while running the newest prophesy through his head. "What triggered the prophesy? What were you focusing on before hand?"
"I tried to see the final battle," Ginny told him. "I wasn't focused on anyone in particular. Is the Lord of the House of Snakes Professor Snape? I would think that the house of snakes refers to Slytherin so whoever is going to become king will be a lord from that house and he is the head of that house."
"What about the rest of it?" Albus asked waiting for her to work it out.
"The Lion Heir Lord is Harry, he is Gryffindor's heir and he is a lord. I guess it could still be Harry's son or even a further descendent. The uniting of the world could mean many things but if you put it in context with my prophesy on the heir where I said that with power and love he would bring about a peace that had not been achieve since the days of Merlin it puts both prophesies in perspective." Ginny told them.
"So Harry and the future king, who is a Slytherin, will unite the world and bring about peace using power and love?" Mr. Weasley asked curiously. "Well that also answers the question about if the Royal family will reemerge after the war."
"Yes, I find it interesting that it talks about the Lord of the house of snakes BECOMING prince then king. That leads us to believe that there is a princess for him to marry yet the prince and princess had not had a child at the time they went into hiding." Albus said thoughtfully.
"Does that mean there is some girl out there who is a princess and doesn't even know it?" Ginny asked them. "How cool would it be to find out that you're royalty?"
"It may be a surreal experience but you also have to remember that to find out she is royalty would be to find out that the life she thought she had been living was a lie. How would you feel if you were told that you were not who you thought you were and that now you had to take responsibility for all the magical people of the world?" Albus said.
"So she thinks she is a muggle born yet she is really one of the most powerful witches to ever live and her parents or grandparents are king and queen? I think you might be right that it would be overwhelming." Ginny told them.
"I have heard that although Albus here is the only wizard that the Dark Lord fears he also was terrified of the Queen. The reason the royal family went into hiding was because he had vowed to put an end to Merlin's line because he feared their power." Arthur told his daughter.
"Why did he fear the queen so much?" Ginny asked curiously.
"Those of the direct decent of Merlin have extraordinary power. They have complete control of elemental magic as well as natural Occlumency and Legimency powers that cannot be protected against. Most of these powers are latent and do not emerge unless desperately needed. The queen fought with me against Grindlewald and her powers emerged during the battle. When thing started to go against us she got upset and called upon her powers to save those she loved. You see the powers do not emerge unless the person had noble intentions. The power itself will not allow itself to be used for evil. The power manifests as a purple glow around the witch or wizard when they are in touch with the elemental magic." Dumbledore told them.
"Sir, that's what I saw in my vision from the orb. I believe the princess will be there and her power will emerge when Voldemort tries to kill Severus after he shows his true colors by saving her," Ginny said. "She was leaning on him for support and she seemed to realize he wasn't a real death eater, she could be an order member!" She had wide eyes; the ramifications of her being right were huge. She not only knew that there was a new member of the royal family, she knew who the princess would marry and that was a thought she didn't want to dwell on.
"We will need to keep this information to ourselves. There is no point dwelling on this. We need to focus on the war first and worry about the royal family afterwards. Even if the princess is in the order there is no way to figure out who she is as long as the charm is still in effect." Arthur told his daughter.
"It never hurts to speculate," Albus said with his eyes sparkling. He had never imagined that Severus would marry. He had always thought of him as a son and wanted him to be happy. "I agree we shouldn't tell anyone that it seems Severus will end up as king but it can't hurt to mention to the order that we believe there to be a new princess. It should ease some of their fears that the Royal family is still safe and sound. It will also prepare whoever she is for eventually finding out she is royalty if she is an order member."
Ginny was excused to go back to her research for the rest of the day and left the two men to talk. "You realize that if Ginny is correct and the princess is in the order she is one of the students," Arthur told Albus seriously. "They did not have a child and were not with child 20 years ago when they went into hiding, which means she is less than 20 years old."
"Yes, and if she is to be at the final battle and her powers emerge then she is already advanced for her age. I am interested in the fact that she didn't seem to fear Severus. There are not many students in this school that do not fear him. I think that even our young order members would fear him if he was in his death eater robes and holding them prisoner in front of Voldemort." Albus said thoughtfully. "This is a very interesting puzzle that will not be solved any time soon."
"Do you think we should mention to the press that a prophesy was made suggesting that the Royal family is alive and well? It may make the community relax some." Arthur asked the wise wizard in front of him.
"Perhaps we should ask Mrs. Longbottom what she thinks her friend the queen would want. They were best friends along with Lady Snape. If she feels there is no harm in releasing that information then we will, if not we will keep it to ourselves." Albus decided.
"I didn't know that Mrs. Longbottom and Lady Snape were friends with the Queen. I had always heard that the queen and Snape's mother were hard to get along with." Arthur mentioned.
"Yes, the three of them were inseparable. They were as close as friends can be, almost like Harry, Ron and Hermione are. The only difference is they didn't allow anyone else in their group. They are all three very stubborn and opinionated women and together they were a force to be reckoned with. The Longbottoms are not as high up in society as the Snapes but both were acceptable friends for Amelia, even though at the time the girls were not married yet. Alexandria and Anastasia were friends with Amelia since the girls were very young. Amelia married Edward who took on the Kensington name. Alexandria married Richard Longbottom and Anastasia married Satori Snape, they had all been betrothed from when the girls could barely walk. That was just the way things were done then in the royal court."
"It's interesting to hear about their friendship being so close since I've never heard Mrs. Longbottom speak of her friends. It must have been very hard on her to first loose her friend the queen, then her son and daughter-in-law and finally her only remaining friend when Lady Snape died." Arthur said wondering if that was why the old woman had always appeared so melancholy.
Draco walked into the library and Gabrielle wasted no time in cornering him. "Where were you last night? I waited up until after midnight and you never came back!" She was to the point of being angry now, he had been avoiding her and she was going to get some answers or he would be on his own.
"I had an errand I had to run," Draco said skirting the issue. He couldn't very well tell her that he had been searching the continent for a ring for her. What he didn't realize was that his nervous energy looked to her like guilt.
Gabrielle narrowed her eyes at him, "I don't like being lied to... what happened to no secrets between us?" This was his last chance to tell her what was going on or she was tossing him out of the house.
"I'm not lying, there were some things that I needed to take care of. It wasn't something I could do with you there so I had to go on my own." Draco said with a calm shrug. He hadn't thought about the way his actions the last few days could be misconstrued. He kept his aloof and smooth persona on and expected her to be fine with his lack of explanation since she had never pried into his comings and goings before.
"Fine," she said with much venom in her voice making him finally notice her angry look. "Then you won't be opposed to living on your own. I think it would be best if you moved back to your manor for the remainder of the summer."
Draco felt his world drop out from under him. Here he was about to propose and she wanted him gone. He didn't know what to do or how to fix it. "Why are we moving back to the manor? I thought you liked it better here?"
"I do." She said coolly making him flinch with her tone. "You're moving back there, not me. I'm sure the house elves will help you pack." She then turned to walk out of the library and to her room where she could cry herself into oblivion.
"Gabrielle, why are you doing this? We're still going to marry each other right?" He asked hoping she was just temporarily upset.
"I don't think so," She said refusing to look at him so he wouldn't see her tears. "We want different things, it just won't work and I don't want to spend the rest of my life unhappy." She hurried back to her room before he could say something to change her mind.
Draco sunk onto the sofa in shock. As her words washed over him he felt his heart break in half. He loved her, loved her so much that if being apart was what made her happy then he would grant her that. He buried his face in his hands and did something no Malfoy was known to do... he cried. He was still in the same position, tears dried on his face, when Hermione and Severus found him hours later.
"Draco, is everything alright?" She asked him tentatively looking for help from Snape. She had never seen a Slytherin cry, it was something they never allowed anyone to see, so she knew it was something serious. Severus was also worried about his student. Draco was a very tough kid and he wondered what could reduce him to tears.
Draco just shook his head; he didn't know how to even vocalize how wrong everything was. He knew it wasn't the end of the world but it felt like it to him. "No," he said raising his head and sighing. He looked into the concerned eyes next to him and wondered if they would still accept him if he wasn't with Gabrielle anymore. "It's over," he told her and walked out of the room.
"What's over?" Hermione asked Snape. "What could get him that upset? I thought you men in Slytherin prided yourselves on never crying in front of people." She wondered if this had to do with Gabrielle and how upset she had been. She knew Gabrielle suspected him of cheating and had said she might send him back to his manor if he didn't come clean, but why would that make him cry?
"I am not sure, but I think it merits some research," Severus said. "I'll go find him; perhaps you should speak with Gabrielle and see if we can get to the heart of the problem."
Hermione nodded and hurried out to find the little Veela. She knocked on the door and felt wards checking her identity before she was allowed in. Hermione was not surprised to see her friend sobbing. She hurried over and tried to comfort her while tying to determine exactly what was going on. "Gabrielle, what's the matter?"
"He wouldn't tell me where he'd been and was acting all guilty so I told him to leave," she said. "Then he asked if we were still getting married..." she broke off in a new wave of sobs. Hermione already knew the answer, there was no way she would be crying that hard if she had agreed to still marry him. That would also explain his tears and the comment that it was over. "I told him no. Oh, Hermione it's over and I feel completely horrible. I love him, gods do I love him, but I refuse to live a lie. Everything would have been fine if I hadn't fallen in love with him. We would have been happy in a platonic relationship. He doesn't want me, doesn't love me. He's probably hurrying to finish packing so he can run off to his mistress." She started crying harder again and it gave Hermione time to formulate a response.
"It might not be over; maybe you two just need a break. This could all just be a big misunderstanding. And I am positive he is not rushing off, I just saw him sitting in the library." Hermione told her. "He looked upset about something and he refused to talk about it. Severus is talking to him right now, maybe there is still hope."
"How can there be hope when he swears he will never fall in love? I know I used to say the same thing, but now that I know what it is I refuse to live without it. If I stay with him I'll spend my life living a lie, how am I supposed to pretend that he is not the most important person in my world?" Gabrielle was slowly calming down knowing she made the only choice available to her. "It's better off ending now while it's just emotional attachment."
Hermione held her friend for another half hour until she fell asleep, then she hurried off to find Severus and find out what was going on. She found him pacing his lab. He stopped to look at her and gestured to the sitting room so they could talk about it. "Draco is devastated, he doesn't understand what just happened," he told her with a serious expression on his face.
"She doesn't want to live her life in a loveless marriage. He has been distant the last few weeks and stayed out all last night, missing date night, without an explanation. She thinks he may be cheating and wanted to end it before she was hurt further." Hermione said watching as his face showed surprise and he silently asked her to explain. "She is in love with him. They had agreed to marry since neither of them believed in love and they thought it would be a good match. But she has fallen completely in love with him and doesn't want to spend her life living lie."
"So she loves him but thinks him incapable of love and not only that but thinks he is no longer interested in her because he has been distant and evasive?" Snape asked and smirked when she nodded. She shot him a questioning look and he elaborated.
"It seems that he has fallen in love with her and was worried about scaring her off. He has been distant while trying to determine his next course of action and the reason he was gone all day and night yesterday was because he was trying to find the perfect engagement ring for her. He has decided the way to prove his love was to ask her to marry him properly and not just because they were betrothed." Snape said as Hermione groaned in exasperation at her two friends' assumptions. "He is now devastated and depressed and packing up his room. He has decided that he loves her so much he will give her the space she wants and a life where she can be happy. He believes that she has somehow realized he loves her and is repulsed by the idea."
"We should just resort them both into Hufflepuff and be done with it!" Hermione said frustrated, rewarded with a rare chuckle from the potions master. "There is no easy way to fix this without flat out telling them that the other one loves them and even then they are too damn suspicious to believe us!"
"Where is Albus with his infernal meddling when you need him?" Snape growled. "He is always around to help those who don't want or need his interference yet now when it is he's mysteriously AWOL."
"Muggle terms Professor?" Hermione smirked at him, "I believe we may be rubbing off on you yet, now what are we going to do about them?"
"Bring in backup," Severus said. "There is an order meeting tonight that they will both need to attend. If we get word to the rest of your group of friends as well as a few of the key older order members maybe we can come up with something to get them to talk it out."
A large group was gathered in the kitchen before dinner to determine what to do about Draco and Gabrielle. Fleur was placed in charge of vetoing ideas about Gabrielle and Severus in charge of the same for Draco. The rest of them, including the entire Weasley clan, all the students, and the newly married Lupins fresh off their honeymoon, were throwing out ideas on how to get them to open up to each other. They were starting to get discouraged and were about to call in Minerva and Albus since they couldn't think of anything. Ginny had been pacing behind the table and a few of them noticed when she stopped mid step.
Ginny was having another vision. She saw the group of them, Gabrielle and Draco included, sitting around the kitchen table laughing. She had just figured out what they were doing in her vision when it ended. The group was staring at her waiting for her to tell them what she saw. "I might just have an idea," she said as her brothers each chuckled. "We are playing a game tonight!" She said and Tonks cheered.
"Yes! I knew there was a reason we came home a few days early," she said as they all laughed at her exuberance. "Plus there is bound to be some questions or actions required that will get the two of them back together."