A/N: You know what's funny? Keeper kind of reminds me of Brian in Family Guy… the talking dog… hahaha cool…
Chapter Seven
"SECTUSEMPRA!"
Blaise grabbed at his chest and fell to the floor as blood spurted out of him. He cried out as Draco Malfoy flipped him over and stepped on his wound.
"You're a blood traitor." He hissed. "You can't possibly tell me you can't do this because... because you're in love with her!"
"I just bloody did," Blaise growled. Malfoy sealed Blaise's new wound, then he pulled him to his feet and pointed to the tattoo of the Skull with a snake tongue protruding out of it.
"Don't forget where your loyalties lie, Zabini."
"Loyalty? To your lot?" Blaise laughed harshly. "The only person I'm loyal to is myself." He pushed Malfoy's hands away from him and walked out of the manor, changing his t-shirt.
"I haven't dismissed you yet, you incompetent-"
"Fuck you," Blaise retorted as his car roared to life. "I'll disembowel you later. I have business to attend to."
"SEARCH THE HOUSE!" Malfoy called after him. With rock music blaring from Blaise's car, he drove off, leaving Malfoy in exhaust soot. He made one stop before going to the Ministry to work with Percy.
"No - Forests, you don't understand! This cauldron is anti-explode! It could - damn it!"
"Business not so good, Perce?" Blaise asked as he tossed his jean jacket on the counter.
"Ministry of Bosnia doesn't want the new cauldrons - says they're better off with their old, exploding ones," Percy muttered.
"LAAAAND!" someone shouted and dropped to the floor from a broomstick. "God, I've been flying for hours. What's up, Perce?"
"Hey, Oliver," Percy said without looking up form an order form.
"...Bla...bini? What're you doing here?" Oliver stood up from the marble ground and brushed himself off.
"I work with him," Blaise replied, nodding at Percy who was yelling at one of the staff members that a page in the order book was missing.
"I see. Percy!" Oliver threw something at him, which he caught. "Your mum said that the weather was gonna get a bit nippy. Told me to bring you that."
"A green knitted jumper. Nice," Blaise commented. "You know, I think that was extremely fashionable back in the late 1980's..."
"Like you would know. You weren't even ten yet," Percy muttered.
"I was eight or nine, big deal."
"It would seem you two have, uh... been reacquainted recently," Percy said with suspiciously narrowed eyes.
"Oh, we're more than 'reacquainted'," Oliver said.
"Yeah, we're sex buddies."
"Secretly, though."
"Well... not anymore, love... you just told Percy."
"You told Percy, dear."
"Oh, cuddle muffin, no, I think you did." Percy stared at his best friend and his co-worker. He wasn't the only one. People all over the Ministry had stopped to look at them.
"...Cuddle muffin, Zabini?"
"Oh, shut up."
"So... you and me are sex buddies, huh?"
"Shut up."
"Do you normally -"
"Wood?"
"Yes, baby."
"Shut up."
"Make me, honeybunch." Ginny, who had apparated with Hermione before their banter, stared openly, wide-eyed at her boyfriend. Oliver bit down laughter as he saw the expression on her face. Blaise didn't see her.
"Maybe I will."
"Hi, Ginny!" Oliver greeted happily. Blaise froze and turned around. He waved meekly at her.
"Um... hey..."
"It's been fun, but... I gotta run. Ciao, lover!" Oliver sang as he skipped away with Hermione.
"I can't believe you did that… you two were like another Fred and George," Hermione laughed and collapsed onto a bench beside Oliver. He looked at her.
"Why can't you believe it?" She shrugged.
"I've always seen you as the type of guy who... I don't know..."
"Who what?"
"A guy who had no sense of humor," she finished bluntly. Oliver quirked an eyebrow.
"What made you think that?" Hermione shrugged again.
"The fact that you're the hot-tempered, stiff Quidditch Captain that I knew in Hogwarts."
"I'm not the same hot-tempered stiff, Quidditch Captain that you knew in Hogwarts," Oliver pointed out.
"No, you're not," Hermione said quietly. She leaned against Oliver's open shoulder while rubbing her stomach. Oliver absently curled his fingers in her hair and kissed her temple. He threw an arm around her shoulder and sighed into her neck. "Oliver…"
"Can't you stop talking for once?" Oliver asked, jokingly before he leaned in and kissed Hermione firmly on the mouth. She stared at him as he did this and, eventually closed her eyes. Oliver pulled her closer and took her bottom lip into his mouth. He ran his tongue over it as Hermione gave a quiet moan of pleasure. Oliver pulled her onto his lap and gently parted her lips with his tongue. Hermione pulled away.
"People are looking," she murmured.
"Let them look," Oliver breathed with darkened eyes before kissing her again.
"Viktor is over there!" That got Oliver's attention. He snapped his head around and turned his alert on.
"Where?" Hermione pointed down the street to someone that sure was getting a lot of attention from his girlfriend… or fiancée.
"Come on. We're going back to the house." Once they apparated, Hermione slipped on something, shrieked and, before she could hit the ground, was caught. Oliver set her upright before crouching and examining the wet spot on the ground. He backed up immediately and shouted out,
"KEEPER! WILLIE!" Both of them came at the same time.
The hell do you want?
"Yes, sir?" Oliver pointed to the pool of blood from the front door to the middle of the living room.
"What happened? Who was here?"
"Willie saw no one, sir," Willie answered, looking at the floor.
Neither did I. Oliver stood still for a couple seconds, staring at Willie. She never looked at the floor when she spoke to Oliver.
"Okay. Willie, clean this up. Hermione, someone could still be in here. Stay in my sight. Keeper –"
Yeah, yeah. He began to sniff the blood, snorted and straightened himself. It was a dark curse. Not unforgivable, though, mind you, so it couldn't have been the Cruciatus Curse.
"Thanks," Oliver said, conjuring up a vile and taking a blood sample. "Keeper, watch Hermione while I bring this in to McGonagall."
I thought you wanted nothing to do with the Order? That's what you said last year when your sis –
"Blood is in my house, Keeper," Oliver interrupted, glaring at him. "I need to find out whose it is. Be back soon, stay alert." He apparated to Hogsmeade and walked through the sunny streets down to Hogwarts, where Headmistress Minerva McGonagall was preparing for the next school year starting in September.
"How do I know you isn't a spy?" Filch asked at the entrance of the school. Oliver gaped at him.
"Because I'm Oliver-fricking-Wood!" Oliver explained for the fifth time desperately.
"I'm aware of who you are, boy! And I happen to know your middle name ain't… 'Fricking'…"
"Argus that will do!" Oliver breathed in relief as he caught sight of Professor McGonagall. "Wood, come in." Filch walked away, muttering to himself – or Mrs. Norris, who was by his feet. "What can I do for you?" Oliver took the vial of blood out of his pocket.
"I need this analyzed. I was going to do it myself, but… I… I can't bring myself to do it anymore. It scares me now, Professor," he admitted, holding it out to her.
"The loss of Elizabeth struck the school hard as well, Oliver… however, you really should think of rejoining the Order." McGonagall patted Oliver's shoulder before taking the blood sample. "To my office, if you will." Oliver followed her through the all-too familiar school.
"She was only thirteen," he whispered softly. "Why did it have to be her? There were plenty of other kids in Hogsmeade!"
"Oliver, we went through this…"
"And it's the exact reason I don't want anything to do with the Order anymore! 'Rule number one-hundred-and-fourteen: you aren't allowed to love'. What kind of bullshit is that? Without love, where would this world be? Without love, how could you make sons and daughters, continue your bloodline?"
"Wood, love is a weakness, and –"
"I came here to get that sample analyzed… not to get lectured about something I've heard dozens of times in psychiatry, which, by the way, I didn't need." McGonagall took out her wand and sighed.
"Oh, believe me, Wood, you needed it. Inferre. It's going to take a couple minutes."
"I didn't need the psychiatrist. I was fine by myself."
"You were throwing things all over the place."
"Then get me to bloody anger management, not psychiatry! 'Oliver, tell yourself you love yourself. No one hates you. The world cares about you'. Well, it was a bunch of bullshit, just like that stupid love rule you made for the Order. What about Tonks and Charlie? Bill and Fleur? Ron and Luna?"
"Tonks, Charlie, Bill and Fleur are married! They were married before the guidebook was made!"
"Ron and Luna, then!"
"OLIVER SCOTT WOOD!"
"Minerva Artemis McGonagall," Oliver snapped tersely. " Elizabeth was my sister. I couldn't help but love her. You can't possibly tell me that I'm not allowed to love my family." The response he got was harsh.
"Not unless they're in the Order. Then no, you can't love them. No connection to them whatsoever." Oliver glared at McGonagall.
A holographic-like head popped out of the now-glowing-green vial of blood, showing… Blaise Zabini. McGonagall looked at him sideways.
"Do you know him? He looks somewhat familiar…"
"Oh, I know him." He took the vial again and sprinted away. "Fuck the love rule..."
"Kids," McGonagall muttered and went back to paper work.
"GINNY!" Oliver kicked off his shoes and ran up the stairs by two's. He threw the door open and ran in, stopping dead in his tracks. Blaise fell off of Ginny and onto the hardwood flooring. Hermione, at the sound of it, came up beside Oliver.
"…Ooh…" Oliver, however, pulled Blaise up by the collar and dragged him away.
"Sit," he ordered, pointing to a chair.
"What'd I do?" Blaise asked, slightly confused.
"SIT!" Oliver pushed him down.
"What the hell?"
"Are you trying to frame me, or something?" Oliver paced back and forth in front of him with his 'crazed-Quidditch-Captain-face' on.
"I ask again, what'd I do?"
"You came into my house when no one was home. You left a trail of blood from the front door to the living room and, I noticed as I went through the front door, that there's more blood along the sidewalk, leading to my house and away from it."
"What are you now, a bloody interrogator?" Blaise demanded. "Normally if someone saw blood, they would actually help the person that was bleeding so furiously!"
"You seemed perfectly fine to me, snogging Ginny up in her room and all! What the hell are you doing?"
"Look, I got into a little… fight. I came here to see Ginny; I stopped in the living room since she wasn't home, so I went back to my car, okay?" Oliver narrowed his eyes at Blaise.
"Get out of here." Blaise stood up, pushed past Oliver and left through the front door. "Willie." The house elf popped in. "You were here, right? You never miss a thing. Hardly. Who was here?" Willie fidgeted around nervously. "…Willie?"
"Willie cannot say!"
"Willie, tell me right now."
"Willie can't, sir! Master told me not to speak a word of it, sir!" Oliver's gaze softened.
"You have a master?" Willie squeaked and hid behind a couch as Oliver moved towards her. "I'm not going to hurt you, Willie. Who's your master? Who's your owner? Is it Blaise Zabini?" Willie nodded quickly, squealed and, with a familiar crack, disappeared.
Oliver, still crouching in the spot from where he had been talking to Willie at, sighed and fell back onto his butt to sit. Remembering something, he headed for his bedroom.
Oliver rummaged around his drawers until he finally found what he was looking for. He glanced at his watch and pulled the chain over his head.
"Four turns," he muttered, spinning the ornament on the necklace. Around him, he saw Keeper chasing Willie around the room and exiting. He saw Ginny practicing singing. When she left, the spinning stopped.
Oliver tucked the time turner into his shirt and left the room, looking around. He ran down the stairs to the living room and hid behind a counter until he heard the door open. "Should have been three turns," Oliver said to himself, seeing that it had taken an hour.
"Oh, shit." Blaise looked around him at the pools of blood he had brought into the house. Coughing, he continued to walk inside to the living room, where Oliver had first found the blood. Blaise glanced at the ceiling and disappeared. Oliver went up the un-creaking stairs quietly. Hearing noise in his room, he quickened the pace a little. "Damn it." Oliver ducked into the washroom as Blaise ran out of the room. He brought his wand out. "Scourgify."
"Master Zabini!"
"…Willie?"
"What are you doing here?"
"…Willie! Listen, is anyone in the house?" Willie looked at the ground. "Willie, I command you to answer my question."
"…No, master."
"Good. Please, Willie, for your sake, stay out of my way. You are not to tell anyone I was here. Got it?"
"Master –"
"Willie, give me your word. Now."
"Willie gives you her word, master," Willie said quietly, still not looking at Blaise. "But that will not stop me from saying you have chosen the wrong path!"
"I didn't choose it, Willie," Blaise said and took off for Hermione's room. Oliver followed, passing Willie.
"Sir!" Oliver turned around and put a finger to his lips and continued to chase Blaise down the hall. Blaise soon came out of Hermione's room and did the cleaning spell. Then he headed to Ginny's. Each search took at least half an hour. By this time, Oliver was already flying from the Burrow to the Ministry, where Percy and Blaise worked.
Blaise came out of Ginny's room holding a book with a phoenix on the cover, checked his watch and bolted down the hallway, past Oliver who had jumped into Hermione's room.
"Willie, clean everything from Ginny's room. Now," he ordered and jumped down the staircase. Oliver heard the engine roar as he zoomed away. Oliver examined the railing and saw a red liquid dripping from it. He glanced at the wall and saw a bloody handprint.
"…Zabini, what the hell have you been doing," he whispered. Oliver looked out the window and saw Blaise's car. He quickly jumped behind a couch as he burst into the living room again.
"Holy shit, you're gonna get yourself caught," he muttered to himself and took a shirt off of the banister. When he left, Oliver examined that as well. He saw the same result as the hand railing and the wall. Blood.
Hermione and another Oliver appeared. Time-Turning-Oliver heard the familiar crack, the familiar shriek and the familiar slip. He bolted up the stairs and hid in his room for the remaining two hours, wondering why Blaise's shirt had been bloody, why he was bloody and who he had gotten into a 'fight' with. A phoenix journal from Ginny's room, that's what he had taken. When the other Oliver got into the room and turned the time turner, Oliver came out of hiding.
A/N:
Chapter seven is finite! Yay for Hermione and Oliver! Hahaha I liked the banter between Oliver and Blaise in the beginning. I was laughing the whole time I was typing it out.
Thank ya…
A.
Charlie K.
Kichou
be11011
RnR!