A/N: Thanks to: shadieladie, aznqudditchchick, san01, Kari-Hermione, imakeeper, vagrantben, nehimasgift, PapayaCrazy, pottersgirl91, Emi-Bum, svelte, Kuroumo, and monsterme.
Sorry
the update came so late today... I'm having a rather bad day. My
hamster, Ginny, died. -tear, sniffle- Read on and review...
Chapter 11 – Lawrence R. Bewells
Hermione awoke the next morning, her eyes burning for more sleep. She got up and smelled something burning. Panic shocked her the rest of the way awake and she kicked back the covers quickly while running out of the room. She stoved her toe on the doorway, but didn't stop running as she barreled down the stairs and into the kitchen.
When Hermione got there, she saw the toaster smoking and Kirsten standing on a chair at the counter with a bowl of cereal, some scattered on the counter, and milk splattered over the sink. Hermione quickly unplugged the toaster and shook the burnt toast out into the sink while tossing a towel over the split milk.
"What are you doing?" Hermione huffed in frustration as she turned to Kirsten.
"Trying to make you breakfast," Kirsten muttered as she fidgeted with her shirt hem.
Hermione huffed out a heavy breath as she pushed her hair back from her face and then turned to clean up the mess. A few minutes later, she trudged up the stairs and into the bathroom for a shower. She felt she needed a long relaxing bath, but seeing as she had to clean up the mess Kirsten so lovingly made, she was running a bit behind now.
Hermione quickly dressed and got Kirsten ready before grabbing her and carrying her down to the fireplace. She reached up to the pot above the fireplace and found there was only a smidgen of Floo Powder left. She dumped the pot into the fireplace and a green puff of smoke went up, but no emerald flames.
"I guess we'll have to Apparate," Hermione groaned as she held Kirsten tighter, the little girl clinging with all her might as her mother Apparated.
They appeared in the living room of Hermione's mother and father's house, Hermione's mother shrieking in surprise and dropping her cup of tea.
"Oh, Hermione, dear," Mrs. Granger gasped.
"Sorry, mother," Hermione sighed as she sent Kirsten down who ran straight for the spot on the couch next to her grandmother.
"I'll never understand why you don't use the front door," her father called warily from the kitchen as he carried in a tray of cookies and milk.
"Dad... how many times?"
"But they're sugar-free," Mr. Granger beamed as he sat the tray before Kirsten.
"Yes, but cookies for breakfast," Hermione reprimanded.
Her parents just looked at her before Hermione shook her head and realized that she didn't have time to argue.
"I'll see you tonight after dinner," Hermione said as she walked around the coffee table and kissed Kirsten goodbye.
"'Bye," Kirsten said, expelling some chewed cookie from her mother.
Mrs. Granger pressed her lips together and tried her best not to laugh as Hermione exhaled nosily at this.
"We'll be fine, have a lovely day at work, darling," Mrs. Granger advised as she wiped Kirsten's mouth.
Hermione waved and grabbed the small wooden box on the mantle place. She was happy that she could at least Floo from her parents. 'Good thing I talked them into keeping this stuff' she thought as she threw the sparkling powder into the fireplace.
Beautiful green flames burst to life and Mr. Granger gave a leaping step away from the fireplace as Hermione stepped in.
"St. Mungo's Janus Thickey Ward!" Hermione bellowed.
She waved quickly to her mother, father, and daughter as she rolled her eyes at the sick expression on her mother's face. 'All this time I've been using magic and such and she's still worried sick' Hermione thought frustratedly.
She stepped out of the fireplace and walked out into the hall while dusting some of the soot from her robes. She made her way to the Healer's locker rooms and changed quickly into her uniform before leaving and making her first rounds.
She wasn't even halfway through when she caught a elderly lady about to take a rather dodgy looking potion.
"I'll just take that, Mrs. Hungerby," Hermione said sweetly while taking the bottle and patting the woman's hand. "Just let me go get you another one... they have to be cold, ya know?" Hermione added as she adjusted the woman's pillow and smiled at her.
"Oh, okay," the lady said sounding somewhat confused, yet smiling like something was funny.
Hermione left the room and stalked down the corridor. She finally reached the potion making room and threw the doors open in a huff only to find no one there. She glared at a little sign sat on a desk before her. She picked it up and read it. Out to lunch. Be back in 45 minutes. - Potions Makers. Hermione rolled here eyes and threw it back down on the desk as she searched for a quill and some ink.
Finding some, she flipped open the jar of ink and jabbed the quill into it and began writing.
Parkinson,
Mrs. Hungerby's potion is to be a Wit-Sharpening one with three feathers from a Jobberknoll added. I'm not real sure what in the – here Hermione almost wrote 'hell', but stopped, scratched it out and continued – name of Merlin you did, but this potion is W-R-O-N-G! Get it right next time, or I will be forced to take it to the hospital administration!
Hermione Granger
"I'm sure then," Hermione growled as she folded the note and placed it beside the out to lunch sign, "your husband's contributions to the hospital won't save you even because that will be the third time this year. St. Mungo's can't afford their reputation to you."
Hermione slammed the bottle down next to her note and stormed out of the room and back up to the Janus Thickey Ward. When she got there, she noticed a young man with black hair that almost looked midnight blue even. His complexion was pale and he seemed to be sneaking down the corridor as though on the look-out for someone.
"Can I help you?" Hermione called, causing him to stand up to full height, which was about a head taller than Hermione, and do an about face.
"As a matter of fact, you can," he grinned while holding out his hand. "I'm Lawrence R. Bewells."
"Uh huh," Hermione said shaking his hand briefly. "And what's the 'R.' stand for?"
"Regal... rich... reporter," Bewells answered. "I'd say good looking, but that doesn't begin with 'R'."
"Wait, did you say reporter?" Hermione repeated.
"Yeah, just a reporter," Lawrence waved off as he looked around the corridor curiously, "just a friend here to see Oliver Wood... Get the scoop on him... see how he's doing, really."
"I think not," Hermione hissed as she grabbed the back of his shirt when he turned away and directed him to the exit. "Out."
"No need to get touchy," Bewells chuckled. "By the way, would you consider a date with me?"
"Not a chance, Bub," Hermione snapped. "Now get out before I call security."
"Fine, have it your way," Bewells shrugged as he turn and left.
"Ridiculous idiot," Hermione grumbled before turning and heading to Oliver's room. "Hello, Oliver."
"Hi," Wood replied in a distant manner.
He wasn't paying much attention to Hermione as he was reading the book she gave him.
"Started over I see," Hermione smiled as she picked up his potion. "You haven't take-," here she stopped as she noticed something.
The potion was wrong. The wrong color, smell, and consistency.
"Haven't taken what?" Oliver asked while looking up from the book.
"Nothing. Just keep reading and I'll be back in a moment," Hermione beamed.
Oliver nodded and went back to reading, just now reaching the part where Hermione left off the other day.
It was there in his eyes that I saw a glimpse of what forever might look like if you were madly in love with someone.
I turned away and he gave a half snort of laughter. I have still to figured out what he had been laughing about, but it doesn't bother me so anymore. We rowed over to the lake shore and got out of the boat. He took me to the café once more and we got a quick tea before realizing that it was almost one in the morning.
Time really flew around him, and all I could do was smile as I thought about how it did. I loved spending time with him. He was unlike any other guy I had met, and it was then, in that very moment, that I knew I would be lonelier than before without his love. I could hardly believe it really. Here I was, a girl just graduated from Hogwarts, a school proclaimed bookworm and soon to be Healer of St. Mungo's, falling in love with a Quidditch star for Puddlemere United, and a guy that had been one of my best friend's Quidditch captains for Gryffindor House back in the Hogwarts days. It didn't matter to my heart, though.
He broke me from my reverie and paid for our drinks before offering to take me back to my hotel. We were almost there when I felt his hand take my own and squeeze it for a split second. I turned to him and he too stopped on the sidewalk to look at me. I laughed and he smiled that heart melting smile of his.
I had only ever seen him smile at me like that once before in my acquaintance of him. It was in my third year when I helped his team achieve what he wanted since he started playing Quidditch for Gryffindor House. Win the Quidditch House Cup. I had only put a mere simple spell on Harry's glasses to help him see, but he acted as though I had got out there and caught the Snitch myself.
He had smiled at me like that and hugged me in a bone crushing hug before giving me what Angelina Johnson had deemed a "victory butt pat".
Oliver suddenly felt rather distracted as a memory came back to his mind.
--Flashback--
Oliver was standing in a mass of black robes, a speck of red and gold Quidditch robes in the center. Rain was pouring down and yet, everyone was cheering excitedly. Two red heads, twins obviously, lifted a black haired boy with glasses and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead up onto their shoulders.
"We've won! We've won!" everyone shouted.
"You've finally won the cup, Wood!" screamed a blond haired girl in red Quidditch robes.
"Thanks to Hermione," added a girl next to her with red hair and a black robe.
"Yeah," Wood grinned as he turned to a bushy haired girl in black robes.
He grinned broadly at her and scooped her up into a tight bear hug as everyone continued cheering.
"Hermione Granger, you're a genius!" Wood bellowed while giving her one last squeeze.
"N-No prob-bl-lem," she coughed as he sat her down.
He smacked her hard on the butt and turned back to the enthusiastic crowd as Hermione went red in the face and covered her butt with her hands.
"It's a victory butt pat, Granger," laughed a dark complected girl with dark brown hair and red robes. "Don't think too much into."
"Y-Yeah... o-okay," Hermione called.
--End Flashback--
Oliver laughed to himself as he recalled the embarrassed look on her face. She was rather cute. He closed the book and sat thinking about the people from that memory.
The red head twins, he thought, were called Fred and George, yet he could give them no last name.
"Beaters," Wood mumbled to himself.
It wasn't their last name, but yet, it was the position they played on the team.
"And Harry Potter," Wood continued as he thought about the boy they had lifted up on their shoulders. "Katie and Angelina... and Hermione."
He remembered all his teammates from Hogwarts, their positions, and now all he had to work on was their last names. He smiled and put down the book he was reading while picking up the yearbook-like thing Padma had brought him.
Meanwhile, Hermione wasn't in such a good mood. She had just arrived at the potions making room and found Pansy there examining her nails while a potion boiled and bubbled over its cauldron.
"Parkinson!" Hermione screamed.
Pansy jumped and then narrowed her eyes on Hermione in disgust as Hermione continued to yell at her.
"This," she snapped while throwing the potion at Pansy who clumsily caught it, "is another one you've screwed up! Tell me... how do you managed it every time?"
Pansy said nothing as she sat the potion bottle down on the desk and continued to examine her nails.
"You just wait. I'm telling the office administration about this one!" Hermione roared. "Do you know what could've happened to Mr. Wood if he had drank that?"
"No, not really... but how is he?" Pansy asked carelessly.
Hermione narrowed her eyes on her and felt a strange feeling of distrust creep up into her.
"What do you care?" Hermione growled.
"Just wondering," Pansy answered absentmindedly.
"I don't believe you," Hermione hissed.
Pansy shrugged and turned back to her potion, which was now putting off a thick gray smoke. It was then that Hermione noticed something on her uniform pocket. It was a pin of a snake, and the eyes of it was blinking red. Hermione walked over and grabbed it, ripping it from her uniform pocket. She flipped it over and noticed the letters 'L.R.B.'
"Nice pin," Hermione said snidely. "I think it's so nice, the hospital administration would like to see it."
With that, Hermione turned to leave, but stopped and turned back around.
"I'll be taking this, too," she added as she grabbed the potion bottle she brought from Oliver's room.
Hermione stalked the halls of St. Mungo's, clear back to the Janus Thickey Ward and into Miriam's office.
"I believe I have proof enough now to get Pansy fired," Hermione announced as she sat down the pin and potion on Miriam's desk.
"Hmm?" Miriam sounded as she looked up from her papers over her glasses at Hermione.
"This is the second faulty potion I've found that she's made today, and that pin right there... it's a bug-"
"Looks like a snake to me," Miriam interrupted.
"No, no," Hermione groaned. "It's a means of spying on things in the hospital. Look at the back. The initials L.R.B. stand for Lawrence R. Bewells. He's a reporter for the Daily Prophet. He was in here earlier today trying to sneak into Oliver Wood's room."
"Good job, Miss Granger," Miriam congratulated. "I'll take this up to hospital administration right away. In the meantime, Miss Patil was looking for you."
"Okay," Hermione beamed; she was feeling rather proud of herself.
She left Miriam's office and went to see Padma, who only had to remind Hermione of the fact that she, Padma, was leaving early tonight. Hermione shrugged it off and went through the rest of the in the best mood she had been in for a long time. Not only was today a good day, but she had tomorrow off.
Hermione walked down the hall of the Janus Thickey Ward. All was quiet, every single patient was tucked into bed and had taken their proper potions. Hermione was even still smiling even though Padma had left two hours ago, and Miriam an hour ago. She was smiling because when she went down for lunch, security guards were searching the potions room, and Pansy was in her office, door ajar, arguing with the office administration.
"Fired, fired, fired," Hermione chuckled to herself.
She grinned broadly as she recalled Draco flying down the hall in rage and bursting into the office where Pansy was. When he did this, Hermione saw that the office administration and Pansy weren't the only ones in the room, but so was Lawrence R. Bewells. Apparently, Pansy had been having a bit of an affair behind Draco's back and it just so happened that Hermione's discovery of the pin aided in the discovery of this affair.
Hermione chortled and sighed contentedly as she looked to a clock high on the corridor wall. 10:37. She would be able to go home in another hour and twenty-three minutes. She was about to turn and go to the cleaning room when she saw a light coming from one of the room. She stopped, staring at the yellowish rectangle of light on the floor before realizing whose room it was. Oliver's.
Hermione walked down and entered the room to see Oliver looking at the Quidditch magazine.
"Mr. Wood?" Hermione called gently from the doorway.
"Oh, hi," Oliver greeted, looking up from the magazine.
"You're supposed to be sleeping," Hermione informed as she walked over and moved the stack of books off Oliver's bed and onto the bedside table.
"I know," Oliver muttered, putting the magazine in his hand on the stack. "But I just can't get over the fact that I'm starting to remember so much, yet I can't figure out how I play Quidditch. The thought of being on a broom is rather... strange."
"You wouldn't think that if you got to watch yourself in a match," Hermione assured him. "It's like it comes natural to you... as natural as the need to breathe and eat."
"Natural like breathing, hmm?" Oliver repeated curiously. "I still don't see how. Maybe someday."
"Um... yeah, someday," Hermione added in a distant, deep in thought voice.
She leaned over and adjusted Oliver's pillow, still looking as though her mind was elsewhere as she smiled at him and turned to leave.
"Hermione?" Oliver called softly.
"Hmm?" she replied as she turned back to him.
"Do you think that we can uh- can still be friends when I get better?" Oliver inquired.
"Oh, Wood, I-," she began in astonishment, but when she saw the shining innocence in his fighting-to-remember eyes, she couldn't say no. "I think we can."
"Really?" Wood breathed in hushed, shocked excitement.
Hermione just nodded, and before she knew it, Oliver had grabbed her hand and pulled her downward into a hug. She stood, surprised and off guard for a moment, but regained composure and patted his back.
Somewhere outside the window, there was a flash of blue and Hermione thought it to be lightning.
"Hope I get home before it rains," she muttered. "G'night, Wood."
"Good night, Hermione," Oliver smiled. "Tell Kirsten I said hi."
"I will," she replied before turning off the light and leaving his room.
She walked down the hall, listening for thunder while peering in other rooms to see flashes of lightning, but none came. 'Curious' she thought to herself as she entered the cleaning room to stack the dishes and fold some of the clean clothes.
