A/N: I simply cannot believe that we're at fourty chapters already! F-O-U-R-T-Y. Unbelievable. Thank you to everyone who has joined me on this journey of 'Accommodations' and who has sticked with me through the hard times and the good. There's more to come, a lot more, and I will do my very best to make it worth your while. Keep reading, and keep reviewing, if you will - I do so love to read your feedback. :)
Marcella xxx
Disclaimer: JK Rowling created and owns the rights to Harry Potter. For the first scene, I used the dialogue from Chapter Twenty-Five: The Beetle at Bay of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Anything you recognize stems from her hands. I do not profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
Sunday, February 8th, 1996
How Hermione managed to go about her daily business without constantly thinking back to the abuse she had had to suffer at Lord Malfoy's hand – amongst other appendages – she would later be unable to say. The important thing was that she did manage, throwing herself into her studies and into the boys' homework alongside her own. Adding that to their planning for the D.A. and her Occlumency practice, her schedule was rather full, and the Sunday following her ordeal in the professor's quarters was no exception.
In fact, Hermione was working on her grip on the Pure Black when Harry cut through her concentration. He was talking about his dreams again that did not appear to be getting any better, despite his training with the Potions Master.
"Maybe it's a bit like an illness," Hermione suggested. "A fever or something. It has to get worse before it gets better."
Harry did not seem to care for that suggestion.
"It's lessons with Snape that are making it worse," he disputed. "I'm getting sick of my scar hurting, and I'm getting bored walking down that corridor every night. I just wish the door would open, I'm sick of staring at it –"
"That's not funny," Hermione interjected with enough venom in her voice that even the Potions Master might have raised a single approving eyebrow. "Dumbledore doesn't want you to have dreams about that corridor at all, or he wouldn't have asked Snape to teach you Occlumency."
Hermione hated having to abandon the professor's title, but for once she was hoping to get through to Harry. He was all too lax about his mental studies, and it was no wonder that his dreams were getting ever worse. She knew that his antipathy towards the professor wasn't helping one bit, and that the professor probably wasn't making things easier for Harry, either, but then again, why would he? Professor Snape didn't spare Hermione one bit in her Occlumency training, and it wasn't she who had an evil megalomaniac corrupting her life with visions of his equally evil plans and machinations.
"You're just going to have to work a bit harder in your lessons."
She should have known that this was not the thing to say, but even though Harry didn't want to hear it, this had needed to be said. Tough love, it seemed, wasn't working too well, though, judging from his reaction.
"I am working!" Harry insisted, rather insulted that she proved to think otherwise. "You try it sometime, Snape trying to get inside your head, it's not a bundle of laughs, you know!"
Hermione was this close to shouting Harry down, telling him all about how she'd managed to train while being whipped, bled, drowned, and even coaxed to an orgasm – although funnily enough, that last notion would probably be the most outrageous one to him.
Yes, learning under the professor was no 'bundle of laughs', as Harry had so adequately put it, but then again, neither were the troops of the self-styled dark lord intent on taking over Wizarding Britain. Harry himself had told them that, had told them that it had been more sheer luck than true skill that had kept him alive in his interactions with You-Know-Who. But now it seemed that he was content to rely on that luck, even though he should have known all too well by now that luck would not keep He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named out of his mind.
"Maybe…" Ron began.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, Hermione chanted in her mind, knowing that whatever Ron was about to say would be in support of Harry. He might intend well, trying to excuse Harry's poor performance in Occlumency and his continued dark dreams, but all it would do was convince Harry that it was okay to neglect his training. Did Harry clear his mind before bed every night as the professor demanded? Hermione did not think so, nor did she think that whatever Ron had to contribute to their conversation would help Harry in his studies.
"Maybe what?" Hermione snapped.
Better get this over with. It wasn't as if Ronald would be ignored, anyway.
"Maybe it's not Harry's fault he can't close his mind," Ron suggested in a most ominous tone of voice.
Yes, Ronald Weasley did most certainly mean well, but then again – how did the saying go? – the road to hell was paved with good intentions.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, knowing perfectly well what Ron meant.
"Well," he continued, "maybe Snape isn't really trying to help Harry… Maybe he's actually trying to open Harry's mind a bit wider… make it easier for You-Know –"
Hermione was swaying between anger and hysteria. Anger won. Dumbledore wanted her to stand up to her friends in support of the professor? Well, stand up, she would.
"Shut up, Ron," she seethed, her control snapping and allowing her to now voice her earlier thought. "How many times have you suspected Snape, and when have you ever been right? Dumbledore trusts him, he works for the Order, that ought to be enough."
"He used to be a Death Eater," Ron insisted, despite the angry glare that was sparkling so brightly in Hermione's eyes, the boys should have feared that she might set the common room on fire. "And we've never seen proof that he really swapped sides…"
This stupid argument, repeated time and again until Hermione wanted to vomit, was ridiculous on too many levels. Harry, whose mind apparently was an open book to You-Know-Who, could not be trusted with any important information, simply because his antagonist might extract that information right out of his thoughts. And that was assuming that Harry would manage to keep his mouth shut in the first place, which he most often didn't, petulant, angry teenage boy that he was. Ron, who at times appeared attached to Harry at the hip, could not be trusted either, because whatever Ron was told, Harry would know within the hour. Hermione, now, she was not officially of age and would not be inducted into the Order until she was out of school either way, she knew.
That was another big issue: why would anyone who was not a member of the Order ever be given any concrete evidence pertaining to the loyalty of one of their members? And even the inducted members would not be given every single piece of information available. In fact, that was how a secret organisation worked – everyone was informed on the strictest need-to-know basis, and there was a very good reason for that. His parents being murdered due to information slipped to You-Know-Who by an Order member should help Harry accept that fact. But of course, being the impatient, impertinent boy that he was, Harry wouldn't accept anything that meant any kind of information was being withheld from him. Because he would rather see the teacher he hated in mortal danger – even though said teacher was a hero who willingly put his life in danger in order to help the Light gain any kind of advantage that might win them this war – by obtaining concrete proof to where his loyalties lay, than accept that there were some things that he simply had to – well – accept.
It would be a waste of breath to tell Harry that, though. He might listen to her words with one ear, but his brain would wave them right through, bleeding out of his memory via the other ear, never to be remembered. And Hermione did need her breath if she was to work on her Pure Black.
"Dumbledore trusts him," was all she said. "And if we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone."
She hoped that at least this notion would sink in. There was nothing wrong with hoping, after all.
Saturday, February 14th, 1996
"Ruddy Merlin, what the heck does that beast want at this time of night?"
Hermione was drawn from her sleep by Lavender's rather loud muttering. She wanted to curse her classmate. She was always in sore need of the precious sleep she could gain on Friday nights. Morgana knew the professor kept her busy on Thursdays, robbing her of her rest by training her in the prefects' bathroom. Of course, she was all in favour of training as hard and as often and as long as they could. But for Lavender to wake her in the night following her private lessons with the Potions Master was simply unthinkable.
And what a workout she had had! The Potions lessons had been difficult enough, what with the professor demanding she continue brewing wandlessly and wordlessly. He had also charmed a Blood Quill to draw blood from her body, cancelling the healing that usually followed, and customizing the area of her body it would attack. And thus it had come that, while Hermione was busy trying to manage her ingredient preparation and potioneering without a wand, all the while Occluding her mind to the best of her abilities, the professor had been sitting at his desk, doodling away, his doodles appearing as cuts on her tender skin.
The results had been beautiful; Hermione would be the first to admit that. She might admire them even more, however, if she didn't need to be the one to carry the painful cost of displaying them. A Venomous Tentacula now spanned the whole of her back, some tentacles reaching so low that they curled around the top of her thighs. It was a truly stunning piece, impressively detailed and depicted as accurately as if the actual plant was stuck on her skin. It had taken the professor both the double period on Monday as well as the single lesson on Thursday to finish it.
No healing had to be had after that, though. Working on Hermione's pain tolerance, the professor had not tended to her wounds before starting on a new drawing in the bathroom. It had been a surreal experience, despite everything Hermione had become used to from the professor. He had had her hover just beneath the surface of the pool, needing to breathe under water all the while, while also Occluding against the eyes that bore into hers through the thin layer of liquid between them. Her head had bumped into the edge of the tiled tub a few times as she winced at several cuts that went deeper than she was used to. The Potions Master had been bowed over the pool, his eyes fixed on hers, his face appearing upside down from Hermione's perspective.
Later she found that he had been drawing a scene from her memories. A Devil's Snare was retreating from a magical source of the brightest light. The image spanned her whole abdomen, some tendrils of the plant caressing the upper curls at the apex of her thighs. The light was bursting from her navel, as the Potions Master had painted it. How he had managed to draw this piece the right way around from facing her upside down, without touching her nor holding parchment or the like in his hands, Hermione might never know. Too intensely concentrated had she been on controlling her breathing, maintaining her mental walls, and holding on to the screams that wanted to escape her as the water between her and the professor grew red from her own blood, to notice how exactly the man had managed that particular feat.
The painting had taken time, and thus Hermione had spent more hours than usual in the prefects' bathroom. How she had managed to stay awake throughout her Friday classes and aware enough to actually follow her lessons, she could not tell, but she vaguely remembered falling into bed immediately after dinner, and nothing afterwards.
Except for her dreams.
She had dreamed of a steady drip-drip-drip as the Potions Master drew a beautiful bluish black plume over her tummy, her skin cast in the dim light she managed to conjure with her eyes closed and her heart braced against the pain. It was a memory of the first night the professor had 'painted' on her, her skin his canvas and her life's essence his paint. The dream had been dark, just an impenetrable blackness surrounding her despite her awareness of the light just beyond her eyelids, interspersed with the steady drip-drip-drip of her blood hitting the wet tiles.
"Sweet Circe's racy lace, what's wrong with these bloody curtains?" Lavender continued to curse, now closer to Hermione's ears.
Shaking off the haziness of her sleep-deprived, dream-addled mind, Hermione roused herself. Oh, she thought. It appeared that her dorm mate was trying to open her curtains. Well, good to see that her wards held strong, preventing such a feat, she mused, even though much to Lavender's annoyance.
Deciding to help the girl, Hermione drew open her bed curtains from within, revealing the blonde. An owl was perched on her left arm while the right was fighting the heavy fabric surrounding Hermione's bed.
"Mighty Morgana, Hermione, did you not hear the owl?" Lavender asked in a stage-whisper that carried her annoyance all too well. "It's been pecking at the window forever!"
Perhaps, Hermione mused, the drip-drip-drip of her dream had not been blood leaking from her stomach. Perhaps it had been a bird seeking entrance to deliver a letter in the middle of the night.
"Your curtains seem to be stuck from the outside, by the way. That ever happen to you?" Lavender asked.
"All the time," Hermione mumbled.
Of course, it never happened to her, but it would not do for her classmate to know that. Hermione would continue to ward them shut every night, so if her dorm mates ever needed to reach her again while she was resting in her bed and would be unable to open her curtains, it might be best they believe that a usual problem for everyone, lest they get suspicious.
"You have an owl," Lavender offered unnecessarily.
Sitting up and holding out her arm for the bird to hop over, Hermione accepted the owl. Lavender crawled into bed with her, for whatever reason. Seating herself at the bottom end of Hermione's bed, the girl lifted the covers to warm her feet under.
Not lifting her gaze from Hermione, Lavender asked impatiently, "Well? Aren't you going to open it?"
The address on the tiny scroll bound to the owl's leg simply read "Princess". Hermione blushed, guessing who it had come from. The moment her hand touched the parchment, the ribbon holding it to the owl fell away and the scroll changed into something different. Something that appeared to be origami.
"Is that... a flower?" Lavender asked in awe. "A Lotus blossom?"
It largely resembled a Lotus blossom, to be sure, but Hermione knew that it wasn't supposed to be one.
"Seems like it," she agreed.
After all, Lavender did not need to know that Hermione was being sent a crown made of folded parchment in the middle of the night.
"Oh look," Lavender exclaimed in a barely hushed tone, "there's a pattern painted onto the petals!"
There was no pattern. What ink graced the crown formed runes. Ancient runes, at that, Hermione noticed. Ancient Nordic runes that would require a translation tome that was practically impossible to get one's hands on these days.
To her, they were as easily readable as her own handwriting. After all, their author had learned the encryption spell from Hermione herself, when he had aided her in charming the watch for the professor. The runes fell away to reveal a beautifully curved script that Hermione was glad to know stemmed from a man she had all but lost hope on hearing from until the summer.
A queen would not be seen without her king on such regal a day, the note read. A princess, however, until such day as she might choose to wear the crown, might need to face this occurrence alone. The king has the utmost faith in her strength, her poise, and her beauty to shine at the side of whoever she might grace with her presence today, or to walk by her own, a force to be reckoned with, a jewel blinding the pebbles amongst which she wanders. He wishes her the most glorious day, today and on all days that his heart has to remain yearning for the time at which they may meet again.
Be safe, princess, it continued after a line break. Be safe for me.
And that was all.
"Hermione?" Lavender cautiously asked through her obvious curiosity. "Is everything alright?"
Looking up from the stunning crown, Hermione seemed to be seeing Lavender through a blurry haze. It took her a moment to realize that her eyes were filled with tears.
"Yes," she replied. "Yes, everything is alright; very much so."
"Who is it from?" her dorm mate pressed, now that nothing seemed to be amiss.
"The king," Hermione muttered.
"Excuse me? I did not quite catch that."
"Oh, just somebody I met over the summer," Hermione replied, now loud enough for Lavender to hear.
"Just somebody, huh?" the girl echoed. "Sure, sure. You must have left quite the impression on somebody if he sends you something this artistic. And calling you 'princess'; my, my. I wish I ever received such a beautiful Valentine's card from a boy."
And with that, she was gone from Hermione's bed to crawl back into her own and catch a few hours' more sleep.
Hermione blushed profusely.
No boy, she thought, remembering the words Kingsley had used to describe what he would do to her if she were his. She had never expected to receive something for Valentine's Day from him, though. Or from anyone, really, for that matter. The thought that it must be past midnight, and thus February 14th already, had not even crossed her mind until Lavender had said the words.
He was missing her, Hermione thought, and the thought alone warmed her from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. His heart was yearning for her, and with a pang, she realized that a part of her own heart was yearning for him, as well. He had become something of an anchor in the furious sea of her life, the only thing tethering her to her sanity in the storm raging around her.
She felt horribly guilty for being unable to give him what he wanted, what they both wanted, and horribly indebted and eternally grateful to him for accepting and respecting that fact. He did not press her for what she could not provide, but gently pulled her closer to him.
She was not falling in love with the man. Her descent into this intense emotion was not chaotic and unplanned as a fall usually was. It was as gentle as being guided down the stairs. He was saving her from the immense height at which she stood, endangered and trembling in fear. He was leading her to the safety that she had come to associate with the depth; the depth of his voice, the depth of his feelings for her, the depth of the warm fuzziness that surrounded her when his lips pressed against her forehead, imbuing her with everything he could provide for her.
She did not know how long she sat in her bed, holding the crown in her hands, her fingers tracing the petal-like spikes, following the curves of Kingsley's handwriting. A sense of peace had filled her that allowed time to slip by unmourned, and that allowed her body to find rest despite the severe lack of sleep.
When she managed to gently lift herself out of the emotional reverie that the Auror's note had lovingly tipped her into, she made a decision. Throwing back the covers, wand in hand, she was out of her bed and on her way.
There was not a sliver of doubt within Hermione's mind that any attempts to continue sleeping in her bed would be futile after the emotionally rousing note from Kingsley. Thus, instead of even trying to find any more rest in the dorm, she Disillusioned herself and made her way to the prefects' bathroom.
Once more she admired the elves' efficiency in cleaning the huge room from what messes she and the professor made there every Thursday night. Then again, she snorted to herself, hers were probably not the only bodily fluids to grace the luxurious bathroom on a regular basis, considering that it existed in a school filled with teenagers.
Chasing those thoughts from her mind, she set to filling the pool with scented water and lots and lots of bubble bath. One of the towels was quickly Transfigured into a plush pillow. Immersing herself in the water, Hermione placed said pillow under her head on the edge of the pool, and fell into a light, but incredibly restful slumber that held innumerable images of full dark lips, bright smiling teeth, and eyes shining of a deep respect that was on the brink of tipping into another, even deeper emotion.
She was woken several hours later, when the door to the bathroom was opened and two people entered whose feminine giggles clearly identified them as girls. Having navigated through the bathroom in the black of the night, Hermione squinted against the sudden light as the sconces lining the walls jumped to life at the flick of a wand from the new entrants. A gasp brought the giggling to a full stop when the two of them appeared to notice that the bathroom was already in use.
"Granger," one of the voices tersely acknowledged her presence, and Hermione relaxed back into the bath, having already halfway risen from the tub in the dazed zone between sleep and full awareness.
"Hi, Hermione," the other voice greeted more cordially, a hint of the earlier giggles colouring the tone.
"Good morning, Katie," Hermione replied to the latter girl, "Angelina."
Hermione half-closed her eyes again, enough to appear asleep, but sufficiently wide open to see what the girls were doing. Katie seemed to relax at that, thinking that Hermione wouldn't be watching them undress. She snapped out of the surprise that had been plainly written on her face at the unabashed manner in which Angelina had been shedding her robes, even though Hermione was present, and followed the Quidditch captain's actions.
"Are you preparing for a date as well?" Katie asked, discarding her robes next to where Angelina had let her own fall to the floor, and joining her teammate as they both descended the ladder into the water, still hot from the pool's charms. It turned out that they had both gone starkers underneath their robes, and Hermione allowed her mind a single moment to admire their beauty before their figures were obscured under the thick layer of non-bursting bubbles.
"If by date you mean February 14th," Hermione replied, "then yes, I am mentally preparing for the onslaught of kitsch and slobbering, hormone-filled teenagers that is certain to hit me today."
"So you won't have company in Hogsmeade today?"
The raised eyebrow was almost audible in Angelina's voice, negating the necessity for Hermione to raise her head and open her eyes from her comfortable recline on the pillow. The real question behind the voiced one was clear: where was the mystery man she had been set on giving herself to before the Christmas holidays?
"I will not be without company in the village," Hermione answered. "But no, I will not be accompanied by anyone in the romantic sense. I will walk alone, if you so will, and I will do so with strength and poise," she partly quoted Kingsley's words at the girls, leaving out the 'beauty' part.
A pleasant lull in the conversation followed in which Hermione tried to convince her still tired, but overall quite well rested body to rouse itself from the pool. After all, the professor might not appreciate her staying in the same room, much less in the same bathtub, with the girl who had brought her to her first orgasm induced by somebody other than herself. She had almost managed that feat and was on the brink of following through with leaving the bath and after that the bathroom, when Katie's voice cut through her inner struggles.
"So, say, Hermione," the girl asked, "will you be taking points for me being in the prefects' bathroom without actually having that privilege?"
Hermione raised her head to look at the chaser.
"That depends," she replied, eyeing the wary expression that stole into Katie's face. "Will you be tattling on me to that new female Gryffindor prefect for being out before curfew's over? I hear she's a real stickler for rules."
The sixth year still looked a little shell shocked when Angelina chimed in.
"Nah, I wouldn't worry about that one," she said with a wink, a smile playing about her full lips. "I hear she's supposedly joined some secret defense association - some prefect she is!"
"Imagine the scandal if somebody were to find out about that!" Hermione exclaimed, smiling as well, as comprehension dawned on Katie's face that they were teasing her. "So what do you say, Katie," Hermione proposed, "I won't tell if you don't?"
Certain of the confirmative answer she was going to receive, Hermione was already climbing out of the bath when Katie replied to her retreating back, "You have yourself a deal there."
Almost out of the bathroom, Hermione heard Katie ask Angelina incredulously, "Did you just flirt with Hermione?"
"Don't be ridiculous," came the Quidditch captain's answer, "why would I need to flirt with Granger when I can do so much more pleasant things with you?"
Hermione smiled to herself, happy for the two girls, as she closed the bathroom door to the sound of Katie's response being cut off with a kiss.
Coming up: Chapter Fourty-One, wherein a visitor from Wiltshire is being discussed.