DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this twisted so-called "plot".
.
.
They were in dank and chilly cave, with only a torch to illuminate the yawning darkness around them. Their steps were cautious and wary; a monotonous and unsettling hum disturbed the airwaves around them.
Indie had a tight grip on her elbow, muttering something about her being the cause of his inevitably early demise. Hermione rolled her eyes but grudgingly allowed it.
Or perhaps not all that grudgingly.
Ten minutes (and six and a half whispered arguments) later, they arrived in a roomy vault of some sort. It was completely closed in, save for a thin shaft of light that speared through a gap in the ceiling, and fell directly on a pedestal in the centre. They approached it... slowly.
A red sandstone tablet – roughly the size of a tea tray – sat with compelling authority on the plinth. It was engraved from corner to corner with strange and archaic looking symbols that glimmered slightly like they were once coated in gold.
Indie squinted at them, tipping back this fedora carelessly.
"What's this then? Ancient Celtic ideography?"
"Leave it to me, Doctor Jones," Hermione said in a subtly coquettish manner.
Indie smirked at her, his fingers trailing down the length of her arm...
"...Ancient runes again...?"
Hermione was unceremoniously sucked out of the vault, and she zoomed through dimensions in a dizzying manner, until she was spat out into a straight-backed wooden chair in the Hogwarts library.
Her dashing, roguish, adventurer/archaeologist companion was replaced by a too-skinny Slytherin in boring, baggy black robes.
She blinked at Theo resentfully. He raised his eyebrows.
"What?" he asked defensively.
"Nothing," she shook her head, "You broke my train of thought, is all."
Pansy Parkinson came strolling along and stopped next to Theo. She scowled deeply, scrunching her upturned nose in an unflattering manner.
"Let's go to the other end of the Library, Theo," she spat, "It smells like mudblood here."
"Shut up, Pansy," Theo snapped, while Hermione glowered.
"Are you defending her?!"
She glared at Theo, eyes widened in alarm. Then she adapted her usual snooty countenance, and said loftily, "I understand that the pathetic mudblood needs all the help she can get, considering how both her gormless friends, and her mangy muggle parents are going to be dead very soon..."
Hermione scrapped her chair back thunderously, and was on her feet in a flash. Pansy whipped her wand out.
"Do your worst, you dirty bitch..."
"Pansy, put your wand down," Theo barked, and he pulled at her sleeve furiously.
She lashed out at him, "Are you SERIOUSLY –"
"I'm defending you, actually," he said, heatedly, "Do you really think getting into a duel with Hermione Granger is going to end well for you?"
That's when Malfoy emerged from between the bookshelves, looking uncharacteristically dishevelled and drawn. He surveyed the scene unemotionally for a few seconds, before settling his hand on Pansy's back.
"Leave it, Pans," he said frostily.
Pansy was still resolutely mid-flap. "What is going on... I don't even..."
"Pans. Pansy. Come on."
Malfoy seemed equally determined to remain impassive. Or perhaps he was too tired to muster any rage. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and his usual pallor had taken on a sickly grey tinge. He drew Pansy away with his palm firmly placed between her shoulder blades. Just before he turned to leave, he looked at Theo with some restrained tension evident in his posture.
His tone, however, was as deadpanned as ever- "Leave it to you to choose the most dramatic way to make a statement."
And then they were gone. Both Theo and Hermione took a moment to reacquaint themselves with regular breathing.
She sat back down heavily, and he followed, settling down on the chair next to her.
She felt her fury leak out from her pores, systematically being replaced by her old friend, fatigue. Theo was atypically quiet; Hermione had expected him to recover his usual blaséness almost instantly, and was waiting for him to pelt her with quips.
Three minutes later, he still hadn't spoken. He was frowning down at her copy of Magical Hieroglyphs and Logograms, but it was clear he wasn't really seeing it at all.
"Theo..." her voice was a trifle shaky and hesitant, "Is that what..." she broke off to take a breath, "Am I a statement?" she asked more steadily.
He seemed to be going over her question minutely, because he didn't answer immediately. His eyes were still glued to her textbook.
"I wanted to get out. Fuck... I needed to get out," he said, rapidly and brusquely through his clenched jaw, "It's been... it's been... it's been utter shit since the Dark Lord returned, okay? My dad – all our dads – rallied around him like the predictable sodding sycophants that they are... And us, their heirs and spawns, were of course expected to follow. But then... then father gets thrown into Azkaban, and I feel... it's like... I mean, it's like I have a chance. He's not going to be in there for long. I needed to do something to get the fuck out of this shitstorm, to make you all believe that I'm not – I am NOT and will NEVER BE – one of them. And you... Hermione... you're kind; the irreproachable golden girl. If I won your favour, I thought I could... I mean... it would be a lifeline..."
His monologue ended abruptly. Hermione stared at the thin line of dust caked on the edge of the table. She tried to find something to say, but failed. She wasn't even sure whether she should be angry or comforting.
It appeared that Theo had still more to declare. When he spoke next, he sounded more sure and eloquent than before –
"But you turned out to be so much more than the bland and banal goody-two-shoes you were supposed to be. You're enigmatic and smart and so bloody interesting, that I found myself wanting your friendship as much as your vote of confidence. Spending time with you became less about laying the groundwork for my... er, emancipation, and more about just spending time with you.
"You're my friend, Hermione. And I'm your friend," he reached out and grabbed her hand that was resting on the table, "I am, alright? I'm your friend."
He had spoken so ardently and beseechingly. Hermione could feel his gaze intent upon her, but now it was she who couldn't meet his eyes. She was a little frightened by the intensity she knew she would find there.
Instead, she flipped the hand within his grasp over so that she could clasp her fingers around his.
"I stunned your father in the Department of Mysteries last year."
1... 2... 3... 4... 5...
"Did you really?"
"Yes."
"My hero."
Later that night, she lay in her bed with her feet propped up perpendicularly against the headboard. Good for blood circulation, her mum had told her.
Sleep was evading her, too wary of the dreams that would follow such a heavy day. A heavy day, in the wake of other heavy days, making way for what will surely be heavier days... all reminders of what was imminent and inescapable: War.
To her, the notion of war had been a distant abstraction; nothing that would ever be a part of her immediate reality; ancient wars reconstructed in history books... modern war sagas on the telly... live footage from Sierra Leone... the horror and savagery was too sickening to even attempt to place herself within.
Sometimes she couldn't believe her life. She remembered the day Professor McGonagall had suddenly turned into a cat in the middle of her living room, and her parents had been too astounded to say more than a couple of winded 'yeses' for the duration of the prim old witch's visit.
"Blimey. There's a snow covered forest in my wardrobe, isn't there?" her dad had said later.
She sometimes liked to imagine what their lives must have been like as 17 year olds. Mum would have been buried in books most of the time, wearing lurid floral shirts, and writing anti-war poetry in a hand sown notebook with pictures of Wilfred Owen and Lorca on the cover.
Dad was a cool cat guitarist in a rock band trying to break into the British Invasion scene. He never made it of course- his band's biggest gigs were late night slots in grimy pubs across London, where the crowd kept demanding they cover The Stones.
Her mum and dad were both studying dentistry in Bristol, but only met in their second year, at a Labour party rally. They were your typical conflict era revolutionary youth, and though Hermione didn't like to think about it, they were deeply entrenched in the 'sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll' of it all.
And here she was.
She wore billowing floor length robes, and a pointy hat. She wrote on parchment with a quill, under the light of a candle. She studied about Merlin, goblins, chimeras, and alchemy. She lived in a medieval castle that had a monster infested lake and a shadowy forest full of enchanted creatures.
She was going to fight a war against a malevolent, sadistic, freshly-resurrected wizard-fiend.
Mother of Godric.
She picked up her wand, and immediately felt currents of magic surge through her body. She transfigured her hairclip into an hourglass, just because, and then had it float up into the air and spin like a dervish. Two mini sandstorms erupted in its glass bulbs – frantic, fevered, and fervent.
Hermione's next run in with Theo occurred the following morning when she was walking to Charms with Neville and Seamus after breakfast.
(She no longer broke bread with her usual group, now that Harry and Ginny were obsessed with their upcoming match against Slytherin, and Ron was still adamant on impersonating a snarling Nundu.)
Seamus was in the middle of a hilarious description of the nocturnal snore-symphony he had to endure every night – while Neville, the baritone, blushed profusely – when Theo zoomed into existence out of nowhere, like a time-travelling DeLorean.
He gripped Hermione's shoulders, standing before her with wildness and desperation in his eyes. He looked fraught and unhinged - "You have to help me, Hermione."
"What's happened? Are you – No, Seamus, it's alright; put your wand away – Right, Theo... What's the matter?"
"LOVEGOOD," he wheezed.
Hermione's face reflected enough bewilderment for him to deign to explain further.
"She's driving me mad, Hermione. MAD. First it was the Blathergouts, and then the Nargles and the Plimpies and Troozits and Fumpkins and this and that and squiggly fuckknowswhazzits that are supposed to be eating my organs, or laying eggs under my skin, or creating a discombobulating fog around my head. Last night after you left the library, she was somehow just there, and she dragged me out to the lake and had me sit there till fucking midnight, fishing around for Dabberblimps. What the fuck are Dabberblimps?! I don't know. I don't know what they look like, but she told me to roll my trousers and muck about in the lake at night in fucking December... And I did it! I'm obviously a complete basketcase because she said that cold water will help repel the somthingswithan'H' that live between my toes, AND I BELIEVED HER."
Seamus and Neville were roaring with laughter.
"Er – I know she's a bit..."
"Impossible. Not a bit! She's entirely fucked up and impossible."
Theo was so genuinely stricken that Hermione broke. She was laughing fully in a matter of milliseconds.
"You can't be laughing," he was appalled. And then – "Oh Circe's tit, here she comes!"
And just like that he was gone, charging down the hallway. Sure enough, Luna drifted by moments later, and after saying a pleasant hello to them, continued to chase after the traumatised Slytherin.
"Did that really just happen!?" Seamus cackled.
"So..." Neville said, red-faced and grinning, "You and Nott... you're...?"
"Friends," she smiled, "He's my friend."
Hermione had most of the day free of lessons, so after another wonderfully productive afternoon spent in the library with Padma, she sauntered out into the grounds to balance out the hours of sedentary preoccupation.
The Gryffindor quidditch team was in the middle of an extremely charged practice session. There seemed to be some big scene going on up in the air, with Demelza crying, Harry and Ginny screaming at Ron, while Peakes glared.
Eh.
She walked around the quidditch stands, rather than across, remembering that time last week when McLaggen had caught hold of her there. She really loved the stinging hex sometimes.
Before she knew it, she found herself at Hagrid's cabin. The man himself was outside with Buckbeak, tossing an assortment of rodents at the hippogriff.
"Dinnertime is it?" she said in lieu of a greeting.
"Hullo, Hermione!" Hagrid's smile shone through his curtains of bristly hair. Dropping the sack of dead animals (to her great relief) he walked over to her and squeezed her shoulder in what she was sure he believed was a gentle manner.
"I'm jus' going ter have a chat with Grawp," he told her, "Want ter come along?"
And so she spent her evening with a giant and a half-giant, giggling over broken sentences and bumbling gestures of affection.
"Grawpy still has a crush on yeh," Hagrid chortled as they walked back.
"He's very sweet. Obviously every bit a smooth operator as his brother. How's Madam Maxime doing, by the way?"
Hagrid's cheeks turned scarlet, and he said "Fine," gruffly.
Hermione smiled at his bashfulness, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow.
The woods were lovely, dark, and deep; and all she promised to do later was sleep.