AH! I AM LOVED!
Thanks for all the AMAZING REVIEWS!
YAY!
AUTHORS NOTE: PLEASE READ! Okay, I was reading my hits (torturous past time, that) and if you make it to this chapter: PLEASE REVIEW IT! You must like it, if you're reading this far. Even if you don't. PLEASE. Just so you know – I WILL NOT be following all of HBP. It doesn't really suit my story plot. So if things don't really fit with book six, don't sue me. And to the whole issue of Hermione's birthday: Oh, well, those things can't be changed. Maybe Dumbledore gave them a birthday to avoid suspicion. I'll try to work it in.
Chapter Ten: Prefect Meeting
The Ministry car, a putrid grayish-red color, deposited the children at King's Cross. There, Tonks, Lupin, and Moody waited. Mr and Mrs Weasley were going onto St. Mungo's to visit the injured Abbots, and console them about their lost children.
The two Aurors and the werewolf ducked through the rain. Or, more precisely, the couple ducked and Moody strode through as though he owned the rain.
Tonks, who had pale blue hair that matched the sapphire on her engagement ring, hugged Hermione excitedly. She almost head-butted Hermione in her excitement, and Moody succumbed only to a gruff pat for the three. Lupin had a sickly smile, and he avoided touching anyone. With the full moon so soon, he needed to be careful.
The group made it through the station and onto the platform without much trouble, except when Tonks knocked over someone's baggage carousel, and managed to almost set him on fire as he hastily put out his cigarette.
With three whooshes the Trio was through the barrier, onto the platform next to the huffing and puffing scarlet Hogwarts Express. For some reason the gilt gold lining the windows seemed duller, and the scarlet had lost some of it's reddish gleam.
Harry, Ron and Hermione waved from the window as the Hogwarts Express pulled away from the station, and then hurried to find an empty compartment. Hermione and Ron would have to leave Harry behind to find the prefect's meeting, but he was a better sport of it than usual.
Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the fact that Ginny was there.
Hermione pulled Ron behind her as they pushed their way to the front prefect's compartment, Hermione thrilling in the simple sensation of holding his hand. Finally they found the curtained carriage, and Hermione pushed through first.
Malfoy stood on the other side, a gleaming Head Boy's badge stuck to the right breast of his school shirt. He took one look at Hermione's identical badge and turned away, swearing violently under his breath.
"Hermione?" was the similar name on everyone's lips, and she blushed from the bottom of her toes to the top of her head, a bright red color that matched her highlights.
"Miss Granger, if you would please take a seat," choked out McGonagall, who, even though she knew of Hermione's physical transformation, looked like she had swallowed her tongue.
"It's Potter now," reminded a soft voice, and Hermione found herself looking into the warm brown eyes of Oliver Wood, who she could have sworn had Flooed to Hogwarts the night before. For a moment, she thought his eyes looked very familiar, and she found herself falling into his arms – literally, as Ron burst into the compartment.
There was a moment of awkward silence, as Hermione disentangled herself from the long – and very fit – limbs of the new quidditch coach. Any thought she had previously of his eyes were forgotten.
Finally, amid snickers from the Slytherins, Hermione sat on the seat next to (but as far away as she could from) Malfoy. McGonagall nodded Ron to his seat between the other Gryffindor prefects and the empty seat next to Oliver.
For a moment, Hermione wondered what he was doing there. But then McGonagall began to speak.
"Professor Wood is here for the beginning of the meeting because the Headmaster would like to place new patrols around the quidditch field, and the professor will give his keys to whomever picked the field as their patrol."
That explanation hardly satisfied Hermione, who knew that Oliver could have quite easily given a spare to McGonagall and from her to the student. But she drew her mind away from the uncertain topic to help run the meeting.
When it finally began to draw to a close, Hermione considered it a great success. She had only stepped on Malfoy three times ("Accidentally, of course, Professor McGonagall."), and he had only made two references to her newfound identity ("Just slips, professor."), and when McGonagall pulled out the hat with the slips of patrols on it, Hermione was certain she would get the Gryffindor patrol.
Head Boy and Head Girl picked first, and after Malfoy withdrew the kitchens and Great and Entrance halls, Hermione reached her hand in, and happily pulled out her slip. As McGonagall passed the hat to the next prefect, Hermione unfolded:
Lake, perimeter of the Forbidden Forest, and quidditch fields.
She looked up to see Oliver's strangely familiar brown eyes staring at her, and he quickly averted them. There was an empty seat next to him, and she moved across the spacious compartment to slide next to him on the red velvet seat.
"I got the quidditch fields," she told him, and he took out his key ring and gave her two keys – one gold and one silver.
"The gold one is for the changing rooms, and opens all the lockers inside," he told her, brushing the tip of her fist with his fingers as he motioned to it. His accent was soft enough that she was having trouble distinguishing the words.
"And the silver?" she asked, certainly her words would come out strangled and breathy, but actually were smooth and under control.
"The broom shed."
"Ah. I presume your balls are in the shed?"
"Pardon?"
"The quidditch balls. Are they in the broom shed?"
"Oh. Yes."
"Good," replied Hermione, and she smiled before slipping out after Ron into the crowded corridors of the carriage. Rain slapped the windows with tiny balls of hail. Hermione wondered for a moment at the confusion over her words, before realizing the double innuendo and blushing furiously.
She was still red when she arrived to the compartment that housed Ginny, Harry and Luna, and when Ginny asked what was wrong, Hermione hastily whispered it under her breath. To her surprise, Ginny began to laugh.
"You said that?" she asked, choking as she tried to keep down her laughter.
"Yes," replied Hermione, becoming annoyed. It wasn't that embarrassing.
"Oh, poor Hermione . . ." she trailed off, still breaking off into the occasional giggle. Harry was watching them, confused, but he eventually wrote it off as a girl thing, and forgot about it as he settled into a violent game of Exploding Snap with Ron.
Oliver sat composed until everyone had left, before letting his head drop into his hands. It was so infuriating – having her have no idea who he really was – and she had been so close right then – next to him, radiant and smiling, and want to kill Ron really badly . . .
But he had been fine at first, and when he brushed her fist clutching his keys, the skin felt smooth against his calloused fingertips. Most of the women he'd dated had been on the quidditch team, and had large hands, just as calloused and rough as his own. He wasn't used to small, delicate fingers.
And then the innuendo.
Oliver was sure that his face had turned a few unknown shades of violet and magenta when the words had come, unembarrassed, from her lips. She hadn't even noticed anything wrong with her statement.
"Oh, Merlin's balls," he muttered. "I don't think I can do this."
An entire school year, with her close by him. Screaming herself hoarse during quidditch. Sitting, laughingly, with Harry's head in her lap next to Ron on the grass by the lake. Ramrod tall during lessons, waving her hand in the air with the aura that only those of great genius assume.
And she would be patrolling right by his rooms, every night, checking the changing rooms, and the pitch, and that God forsaken broom shed.
Perhaps he would ask for a room transfer.
Or perhaps he wouldn't.
She sat across from him, her mulberry curls whirling around her head in a haze of light and color. Her golden eyes, such a strange color, stared at him.
"You want me to marry you?" she asked, and her voice had no trace of scorn. She was surprised by his offer. "Me?"
"Yes," he breathed, glad that he had finally worked up the courage to talk to her. Lord he may have been of his own keep, but outside she ruled everything.
"But why me?" she asked. The girl lacked such confidence in her looks that she was sure he would have chosen someone else.
"Because I love you."
A pause.
"You love me?"
"Yes. Do you love me?"
"Always," she whispered, and leaned across the table to capture his lips with her own. The dark hair brushed his cheek, and he wove his fingers in it, and pulled her closer, and when she opened her mouth, he used the chance to dip deeper.
Suddenly she pulled away, lips swollen, eyes angry.
Wait. This isn't how it happened.
"You killed me." No!
"I loved you, and you lied and said you loved me back." I did! I swear I did!
"You took my daughter away from me." I never took her away. You left.
"My death pushed me away." You pulled yourself away. He was angry now. It was all her fault, not his.
"YOUR FAULT. YOU KILLED ME, AND YOU KILLED YOUR DAUGHTER WITHOUT A THOUGHT TO US. YOUR AMBITION WILL KILL YOU. LOVE MAY BREED WEAKNESS, BUT IT GIVES YOU SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR. WHAT ARE YOU FIGHTING FOR?"
Voldemort woke with a gasp, and he saw stars for a moment before his vision cleared, and the richly decorated bedroom swam into view. The mahogany furniture was polished until it gleamed, and the black marble fireplace still bore the stain of ink from his anger.
Voldemort leaned back on the silk pillows, his whole body slick with sweat. The sheets were ruined.
For a moment, he stared at the silver hangings above his head. The room was an exhibit of good taste and good furniture.
The wine in the elegantly etched crystal decanter on the side table was blood red and a fine vintage.
His windows showed a beautiful view of the ocean and mountains behind it.
The room was perfect.
But except for him, it was empty.
AWW! Voldie's got a HEART!
Don't worry, it won't last.
Anyway, LOVE and SUCH, but PLEASE REVIEW!