Disclaimer: Please don't sue! It'd be useless anyway, 'cause all you'd get out of me would be a half-eaten box of Cheese-Its and my cat. He bites.
Author's Note: Hi ya'll! Anyway, my computer is (once again) being strange. For some reason, my wireless access works everywhere except at home. I really have no idea when it's going to be fixed, so bear with me.
Second Author's Note: My foot's gotten better, if anyone cares. Now I'll just have to move onto the next injury . . .
Third Author's Note (written a week later): Here it is! I now have a spider bite the size of a small frying pan on the back of my thigh, making it almost impossible to sit. I hope you're glad that I'm typing this standing up, because my calves are getting really tired . . .
SHOUT OUT TO KOLE17, who was my 300th reviewer! YAY! And for your trouble? A life-size OLIVER GUMMY! Please enjoy responsibly.
Chapter Twenty-One: Christmas Eve
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Quite a few months earlier
Martha Ollivander had always known that her father was a bit dodgy.
However, the morning she decided to drop in on her dodgy father, beg off a spot of tea and tell him about the rather fantastic discovery she had made about the wand in his shop window, she found his shop quite deserted.
Confused, Martha dusted off a red velvet chair in the back room and put on the kettle. Four hours later, as she drifted off, sipping Earl Grey and nonchalantly tapping her wand against the droopy coffee table, he still hadn't arrived.
Nor was he there at eight o'clock that evening, when a series of explosions at Weasley Wizard Wheezes across the way woke her with a start.
Mind you, Martha had always expected for her father to do something like this (it was so completely like him) one day. When she was a child, he'd wander out into Diagon Alley, citing a new gift for her as an explanation for his absence, and not return until midnight.
Clucking her tongue, Martha owled in her office to explain that she had caught a rather nasty cough, and wouldn't be in the next day, and then set about dusting off the furniture. It wasn't until she was all through with the back room and halfway across the dimly lit reception area when it hit her that her father must've been gone longer than she'd originally presumed. A new layer of dust had settled over the usual one, and there were no signs of her father's distinctive footprints.
Martha 'hmph'ed, and then with a swipe of her wand, had the broom sweep across the length of the room, raising the grime in a hurricane of allergies and dust bunnies. Coughing until her eyes watered, Martha moved across, narrowly avoiding the furiously working broom, until she was positioned at the shop window. There, on a royal blue pillow trimmed with bronze piping (faded to purple now, the piping turned dull by age), was a wand.
Martha could hear her father's voice in her head. "Spruce, pliable, 10 1/3 inches, with a tail feather from a jobberknoll. Fantastic for spellwork, you know. All kinds: adds a bit of a sting to hexes, and charms just come out better."
She knew that he'd go spare if he had been there that morning when she'd arrived, and she could have told him what she had just discovered the Tuesday before. Fingertips tingling, Martha reached out and ran a fingertip down the length of the wand. Her own memories rose back up to meet her: her preadolescent voice, wavering, asking, "Dad, where'd that wand in the window come from?"
"It's been in this family for as long as I can remember, Marty."
"Goodness, how long is that?"
"Quite a long time."
"Would Gramp know where it came from?"
"I doubt it."
Of course, she'd managed to trump both of them. She remembered the betrayed look in her father's eye as she told him she'd accepted a position in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministy. He'd expected her to go into wand-selling, like him, and her grandfather before that, and all the way, back and back and back through endless generations.
Now, she'd hoped to get rid of the glint of disappointment.
With a cry, Martha snatched her finger back from the wand. The bloody think had snapped at her! Her! A wand! She rubbed a thumb across the peaked bit of skin, mumbling about ancient artifacts, before turning on her heel and once again dodging the broom, moved towards the back room to get her bag and leave. Her father be damned; man couldn't just up and leave and expect her to take care of the place.
As she gathered up her bag and dumped the tea things in the sink, still muttering, Martha forgot about the broom she'd left in the front room. She left through the back door, slamming it theatrically behind her, swiping her thumb across the broken skin of her fingertip.
The over-zealous broom, once it had finished its chore, leapt across the room to settle in the corner by the window where it usually rested. Martha, however, had moved the pillow ever so slightly that it was in the broom's way. Noiselessly, the broom magically shoved itself into its home, the wand wavering for a second before tumbling off, hitting the floor, and rolling across so it was hidden under the lip of the counter.
There it stayed, gathering even more dust, waiting for a member of the Ollivander family to return and put it back on its cushion in the window.
But the next person to find it wasn't an Ollivander.
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Now back to present time . . .
"Luna!"
Ginny Weasley was incredifabulously, outstandingishly, delirifantastically happy – enough so that in her mind she was using words that didn't really exist – with an appearance of a member of the female race that could share her misery that she almost throttled Luna Lovegood in her attempts to welcome her into the Weasley family home.
Ginny's misery being that she was forced to endure Harry's moody glances that he shot her whenever he thought she wasn't looking (generally this was when she was). Hermione, of course, wouldn't understand, it being her best friend – BROTHER – that was responsible for her misery.
Luna Lovegood, however, felt the exact same way about Ginny sharing her misery.
After the death of her mother, Luna and her father had often spent their solitary Christmas Eves at home, guarding the tree against Gimpy-winnles and testing the week-old eggnog for the miniscule eggs of the Bi-tailed Minkruk. This Christmas, however, Mrs. Weasley had happily invited the pair to spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day itself at the Burrow – because while Mrs. Weasley was a loving mother, and sometime oblivious to the exploits of her children, she wasn't blind.
Luna was the key to a very merry Christmas for someone in the Weasley family.
"Thank god you're here!" exclaimed Ginny, grasping the hand of her pale friend and dragging her up the rickety staircase to her bedroom.
Mr. Lovegood was left in the company of Mr. Weasley, who immediately offered to show the tall, gangly man his collection of Muggle batteries. The two merrily set off for the shed, talking excitedly.
"The boys are planning something," warned Ginny as she tugged Luna up the staircase at an accelerated pace. "I wouldn't touch anything after they have tonight at dinner." Luna, however, was examining the wooden handrails with a sort of detached exactingness, which made her seem a bit cross-eyed.
"Did you know," she asked Ginny in her strange, whispery voice, "that Crinkle-haired Unocoles make their nests in handrails made of ash?" She finished brightly, and Ginny raised a single, eloquent eyebrow before yanking the blonde inside her bedroom and slamming the door shut.
"I want you to watch Hermione for me," declared the youngest Weasley as she settled onto her bed. "She's been acting a bit off lately, I think. But I want a second opinion." Luna murmured her assent, and she gazed around the room for a few seconds before asking in her blunt way:
"What's wrong?"
Ginny's neck crackled as she snapped her head upwards to look at Loony Lovegood, who was watching her with slightly narrowed eyes.
"Wrong?" she asked, aiming for nonchalance, but falling a few feet short when she attempted to lean backwards and rest her elbows, but misjudged the distance and flipped backwards off the bed.
"Yes, wrong," replied Luna as she stood up and leaned across to help her up. "We haven't always been fantastic friends, Ginevra." Luna's usually exasperating way of using her full name for once didn't serve to exasperate. "Why did you invite my father and I?"
"Well, you live in the village down the way," began Ginny lamely, before backtracking and starting over. "Alright – it's Harry. He's driving me absolutely spare! All he does is stare moodily! He's the one who broke up with me!" Ginny let out a grogh (as the twins had christened her traditional half-groan-half-sigh noise) and flopped down on the floor. Luna joined her a moment later in a wobbly sitting motion.
"He said that Voldemort could use me against him – all his traditional The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Make-His-Own-Life-More-Miserable rot – and then turned and walked away!" wailed Ginny, banging her head against the wall. It shuddered for a moment before calming, but Ginny raged onward.
"If he's so bloody selfless why does he always look at me like some sort of dejected, kicked puppy?"
"Maybe he regrets it," suggested Luna. She was looking at Ginny as if looking through her, and this was throwing the redhead off her stride a bit. "Harry's never really thought these sort of things through, you know."
"Don't I know it," declared Ginny unhappily.
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Hermione, who really, really was trying not to be conspicuous, had ended up being the exact opposite. There were times where at dinner, she'd look up to Oliver looking across the table at her, and she'd turn a rather becoming shade of pink, and bury her gaze back into her mashed potatoes. And others, where she'd run into him on the stairs with the twins, and once again the blush would spread up her neck and across her face as she attempted to get by.
And whenever they'd manage to maneuver a moment alone together – which required quite a lot of maneuvering – they would awkwardly sit (or stand) in silence for a few milliseconds before Hermione jumped him like some sort of flobberworm.
Being analytical, there were two reasons that Hermione could find that explained why she was so reticent about speaking to Oliver.
1) She didn't quite know how to start a conversation with a man she had kissed more times than she had talked to.
And then there was the more terribly obvious reason:
2) She didn't quite know how to start a conversation with a man she had discovered bespelled attempting to steal a horcrux. Because, you see, if she started this conversation with him, she'd have to explain what a horcrux was.
Thus, Hermione was stuck in something vaguely resembling the minuscule hole between a rock and a hard space. No matter how much she analyzed, and made lists and discussed possible outcomes with herself, she couldn't discover how to tell Oliver anything.
To add to her dilemma, Hermione was experiencing an immense amount of guilt. She was fantastically guilty that Oliver didn't know about the horcrux incident; that her brother and Ron didn't know about Oliver; that she wasn't actually as unhappy about her parents forgetting her as a proper daughter should have been; that she wasn't paying enough attention to Ginny, who was at this point her only ally; and most horrifying of all . . . that she had generally neglected her NEWT revision.
So Christmas Eve afternoon, as Ginny carted Luna upstairs, Harry, Ron and the twins sequestered themselves in the twins' room (doing something that Mrs. Weasley probably would not approve of if she knew of it) and the adults vanished, mumbling respectively about batteries and snow peas spells, Hermione decided to confront her unconquerable situation.
Grasping Oliver around the wrist, she pulled the burly man behind her into the Weasley family coat closet. She closed the door, locked it, and lighted her wand tip. "We need to—" she began, but was cut off as Oliver's lips descended onto hers, and his hand snaked itself around her waist.
"Mmph," she objected, not really objecting, and found herself wrapping her arms around his neck in a fashion that was so completely un-Hermione-like that she was surprised she even considered it.
But as Oliver steadily backed her up until her shoulder-blades were pressed against the peeling paint of the coat closet, Hermione heard the rustling of something burrowing its way through the walls, and she was able to distance herself from the mind-blowing experience of being very expertly kissed by Oliver Wood.
She unwound her arms, planted both palms on his cheeks and pushed his head gently backwards. "We," she declared quickly before he got it in his mind to kiss her again, "have to talk."
Oliver turned very pale, although it was hard for Hermione to be certain in the dull lighting that the tip of her wand provided.
"Not that sort of talking," she corrected quickly. "The kind of what-are-we-doing sort of talking." Hermione, having never done this before, was not quite certain to proceed.
However, one could not be roommates with Lavender Brown and the daughter of a secret romance-novel addict and not know at least a little bit about how to go about asking the proper questions.
"What do you mean?" asked Oliver, resting his forehead against hers – which considering the six inches difference in their height, was no mean feat – so the light exploded under his chin.
"Well . . . Hogwarts is a bit strict about student-teacher relationships," stuttered Hermione, who was for the first time in her life on unequal footing. "We are . . . having a relationship aren't we?"
"Of course," replied Oliver, sounding a bit exasperated. "And would you mind keeping it a secret for the rest of the term?"
Well . . . yes, she would.
"Of course not," lied Hermione brilliantly. "Now that I've established that we are, in fact, having a relationship . . . I think that I should get to know more about you than that you're obsessed with quidditch –" here she almost mentioned his sister, but instead glossed over that "—and snog quite brilliantly."
"Thank you," grinned Oliver, "for the bit about my snogging." Hermione immediately began to blush, and she could feel the bits of her hair begin to tingle, even though she knew that scientifically, the bits of her hair couldn't feel anything at all, they not having nerve endings and all that rot.
Good lord . . . must remember to put in brain next time I leave Ginny's room. Probably isn't good to be wandering about without one.
There was a bit of silence before Oliver ventured, "Could we possibly to this getting-to-know-each-other bit upstairs? And not in a coat closet possibly infested with Doxy eggs?"
With a shriek (and the glaring memory of the last time she had spent time in the company of Doxies), Hermione threw herself out of the closet, and because Oliver's arms were wrapped around her, they tumbled out onto the floor, limbs askew and wrapped around one another.
"Bloody hell," squeezed out Oliver with the last bit of breath that hadn't been knocked out of his lungs. He couldn't help realizing that this position – Hermione being tossed over the upper half of his body, her hair spreading a curtain of sorts between their faces and the rest of the hallway – was exceedingly fortunate. Obviously one of the gods was smiling upon him.
"Lunch is ready!"
Mrs. Weasley's voice echoing from the kitchen just around the corner seemed to knock some sense back into Hermione, because she quickly detangled herself from him and stood, brushing down her every which-way hair, and dusting off the back of her pants.
"We'll continued this later," she said before fleeing, romance-novel-esque, into the kitchen. Oliver could hear her bright voice inquiring Mrs. Weasley what exactly was for lunch, as he still lay in a daze of sorts on the corridor floor.
"Oliver? What the devil are you doing?" Fred peeked around the corner to see his good friend sprawled on the floor.
"You dunna want to know," sighed Oliver.
"Damn straight," plowed on George, who had joined his twin.
"Because have we got quite the thing –"
"For you to see –"
"Been working on it all afternoon –"
"Pure stroke of genius –"
"Just something to light up the holidays –"
"Put a bit of spring in everyone's step –"
"That sorta thing."
Oliver groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Now I'm the one who doesn't want to know anything."
"Come know mate," cried George.
"You'll love it!" exclaimed Fred. Seeing that they we about to dissemble into yet another one of their confusing explanations where they finished each other's sentences, Oliver pulled himself to his feet, pushing the closet door closed.
"It'll certainly put Hermione on her toes," added George as Oliver joined them at their corner.
"What," demanded Oliver in what he assumed to be a slow, measured voice, "does that mean?"
"Nothing," winked Fred. George, while seeming nonchalant, was actually a bit scared about the dangerous glint that was growing in the eye of his Scottish mate. Oliver, however, wasn't going to be put off.
"Don't you dare do anything to her," he all but hissed.
"Whoa, old boy," said George, patting him on the back. "What's made you so protective of our young Miss Potter now?"
The truth was hardly the best route to take in this case.
"She just found out that her adoptive parents we bespelled to forget her. I hardly think that you pranking her is going to light up her Christmas," snapped Oliver, batting away George's hand.
"Spoilsport," pouted Fred.
"S'pose we can use Ginny," put in George complacently. "She's always been good for a bit of experimental science."
Sufficiently calmed by the thought that Hermione was now safe from whatever surely excruciatingly embarrassing fate Fred and George had planned for her, Oliver decided to avoid talking them out of performing it on their little sister, and simply noted that perhaps they should get some lunch before Ron devoured all of it for them.
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That night, the Trio, plus Ginny and Luna, gathered in the Weasley family living room. Ron and Harry were deep in a game of wizard's chess, while Luna and Ginny played Exploding Snap, and Hermione was reading a book on horcruxes she'd checked out of the Restricted Section before winter break.
It was, of course, spelled so the title appeared to be Lacewing, Beetles and Burexes: Two-Part Poisons and How They Are Triggered. Ron had mumbled something under his breath about the size of the book when Hermione had first entered with it, but she ignored him, as per usual.
Luna had just won her first game, and was celebrating by whirling her butterbeer-cork necklace around her index finger when Ginny excused herself into the kitchen. After a moment's pause, Harry did the same.
Ron remained silent for a millisecond before rising to his feet and making to creep after them. "Ron!" admonished Hermione in a lowered voice, putting down her book and carefully marking her place. "Don't you dare!"
"Shh!" hissed Ron, and made towards the kitchen.
With an exasperated sigh, Hermione rose off the couch and made after him, Luna swinging behind her as if there was nothing even vaguely covert about what they were doing.
Even before she reached Ron – who was crouched by the closed kitchen door, his ear to the crack between the frame and the door itself – Hermione could hear the angry murmurs of the two people inside.
"Harry! Why are you always going after me when you're the one who broke up with me! I can't stand your moody looks and those bloody stares!" Ginny sounded angry and frustrated, and Hermione could just barely make out the shuffling of her feet as she paced the linoleum floor.
Harry replied in a voice that was too quiet to hear; whatever it was, though, it made Ginny angry enough to smash something with a bang that reverberated through the walls.
It took seconds for Hermione to realize that the anguished scream that followed the crash was one of fear, not frustration.
She reached for the doorknob as something else exploded, the sound piercing the solid wood door and driving daggers into her ears. Her hand was moving slowly . . . too slowly. It felt as if her limbs were pushing through the molasses of noise the jargled from the kitchen. She jangled the doorknob for seeming minutes before realizing that it was locked, and thrusting her wand at it, tears pulsating through her eyes.
The door swung open to reveal the kitchen in shambles, cabinet doors swinging open just as the back door did, brushing in the lightly falling snow. The instep was littered with strands of long red hair, twisted on the dusting of white snow. The table was broken in half, splinters littering the floor.
Harry knelt in the middle of the chaos, his knees bleeding from the wooden shards embedded into his legs.
He looked up, eyes glazed as Hermione, Ron and Luna tumbled into the desecrated room. His voice was as small and weak as the legs that were folded under him.
"They took Ginny."
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Wait!
I know what you're thinking.
"What is this crazy bh doing?"
Don't worry! All will be well! There IS method to my madness!
And if it makes you feel any better, this chapter was the hardest one that I've had to write in a long time. Mostly because I feel SO AWFUL about how it ends.
Please review! You can even call me a crazy bitch if you want to (however I would prefer if you did not).