Author's Note - Thank you, guys, for your kind reviews. I hope that my story can meet your expectations.
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She smiled cheerfully and gave the badge a loving pat-pat.
Head Girl.
Divine-she paroled the hall, lilting her steps to the sound of some silent rhythm in her mind, badge flashing and playing the light respectively. To the students of Hogwarts, she was an accomplished war-hero, a brilliant prude, and an authoritative figurehead. To her friends, Hermione was the bushy-headed brain with feet. The loyal. The brave. The absolutely odd and lovable 'Mione.
"Head Girl" 'Mione.
Something in her had logically registered this particular elation as nothing more than a childish accomplishment-the rest of her stayed just too damn proud to care. Head Girl! And Harry Head Boy, too. Once again, in a perfectly memorized motion, she plucked the badge up from her robes and gazed into the marked reflection of her joyously-child face, feeling the hellish summer slip farther and farther away, like sand through the slips of her fingers as the sun came down to warm her.
There would be some days, of course, that the guilt of the war would weight her down until she felt her lungs would explode. But, other days, like that particular morning after watching the curious first-years buckle under the sorting hat the previous night and gazing unabashedly into the night-abyss as she crossed the lake for the last time, Hermione felt a sense that the world, having previously been upturned on its axis, was beginning to right itself.
"'Mione!"
The red-headed mound of freckles stood and grinned like the Chester cat that caught the mouse. Hermione gazed at him, curiously, crossing the threshold of the Great Hall, the glittering ambiance of her badge proceeding each step. Neville peeped quizzically up at her too, pausing a spoon over his brimming bowl of porridge. In fact, an entire heard of foolishly smiling Gryffindors beamed cryptically up at the, now, bewildered Hermione.
"It came just a few minutes ago," Harry explained as the Head Girl took her usual seat, eyes now grazing over the thing-the cause of all this curious nonsense.
It sat rather indifferently in an empty brass plate, shimmering the morning light of the Hall. The heart-shaped box was ornate-though classically, rather than the plastic Valentine's gifts to which the youths were so accustomed. Along the mahogany edge was carved an entire scene of angels and crucifixes and wholly Catholic paraphenilla and ornate with specks of gold-a golden heart on the cross, golden angel wings, a wholly golden rose bush-small props in the strangely gothic scene. On the top of the box was an equally lavish depiction of the sun and moon fused into one just below a stunningly display of the word "Hermione"-strangely different from the other carvings, as if penned by entirely different hands.
Hermione, unmoving, gazed at the box.
"Well?" Ron prodded, his arms crossed triumphantly across his chest. To see the fully bookish little creature reduced to such a...feminine display was sensational. "Open the bloody thing."
She was hesitant. "What if it's cursed?"
"It could be a portkey!" someone interjected.
"It's just some secret admirer," countered a wholly female tone.
"What's this, then?" A distant, pleasant tone beamed behind Hermione. She turned, blushing, and set her eyes unsteadily upon the Headmaster.
"It came by owl this morning," Harry remarked, refusing to be merely the observer. Hermione shot him an incredulous look, to which he promptly remarked: "I have no idea who's owl, Hermione, I swear."
Dumbledore, eyes twinkling on and off brightly like two Muggle radio towers, reached across the fuming seventh-year girl to place the tip of his wand across the brim of the box. He paused. And oh, then, how he smiled. They all smiled at the fiercely vexed Hermione, some giggling over fruit or pastries, others trying to mask it over the brim of their goblets. None, though, so boldly flashing a row of teeth as Ron. "It's quite harmless, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said, pulling his wand back into the muddled robes and yet making no move to leave his prized position above her right shoulder. "Perhaps you should open your gift, as I'm sure someone has taken great pains in fashioning it."
Someone I'll promptly hex just as soon as they all stop grinning at me like Crookshanks at the fish bowl, she thought.
With a sigh, Hermione hesitantly graced one finger along the pointed edge of the box before carefully and slowly lifting away the lid. At the sight of it, nearly ever female at the table gasped.
Except Hermione, of course, who nearly evaporated into a million tiny piqued pieces.
There, in the black velvet lining of the mahogany, were two antique, pearl earrings, dangling in a drop beneath a small, ornate silver setting. The only other occupant of the box, however, was the slightest bit of parchment barring the words; "For My Cherished".
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The Headmaster took his usual seat at the center of the Head Table, eyes brimming with some new mischief.
"What's all this commotion on about, Albus?" Remus inquired, fork dangling in midair as he paused to entertain himself by watching the Headmaster struggle not to let his jovial demeanor proceed into unabashed laughter.
"It seems that Miss Granger has a young admirer in tow," Albus replied before sipping at his pumpkin juice to hide a giggle.
Professor McGonigal brightened at that, her chin lifting proudly at the idea of such a prominent Gryffindor being paid her due tribute. "It's no wonder that Potter his finally come to his senses," she remarked, happily conjuring up images of brave, brilliant, and famous Gryffindor offspring.
Remus chuckled. "I've often wondered whether or not they had finally become an item."
"Quite the contrary, Minerva," Albus interjected, prodding his Berry-Flavored Porridge to keep it from wiggling out of the bowl. "Young Harry is just as puzzled as to who the sender may be as is Miss Granger."
Minerva, hopes dashed, darkened at the idea of a Hufflepuff or even, dare say it, a Slytherin with their eyes on the prized young witch.
Remus could not help feeling much uplifted by this sudden occurrence-freeing his mind momentarily of the crushing burden of the past summer. He found himself gazing quite interestingly at the young Gryffindor girl-woman! How she had grown the past few years had suddenly astonished his old eyes. Seventeen and already had her hair softened into a mature compile of curls and honey kisses. Her fair complection was now brilliantly free of freckles or pimples, only warm white skin that, at the moment, gleamed from her embarrassment. Even more astonishingly had she began to fill the robes with a woman's shapely body.
Briefly, large cinnamon eyes turned to catch his gaze-then looked away hurriedly as Remus pretended to quickly brush crumbs from his lap.
Albus, missing nothing, could only sip his pumpkin juice and beam. "What do you make of the situation, Severus?" he asked, cautiously.
The long, black form beside Remus smirked-a trademark. One hooked nose and two small, black eyes upturned disgustedly. "I do not make the lives of my students my own personal business, Headmaster, as you well know," Snape remarked dryly, watching two long, greasy strands of hair slip just into vision. He hesitated, something flashing briefly in his eyes before composure finally overtook them. "Lupin, are you quite content gawking at certain members of the student body or shall I be obliged to regain the instruction of your classes until you have quite composed yourself?"
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Author's Note - Ooohooo...I love my nasty Snapey. Please R/R, my lovelies. I think I shall also post the next chapter, as it I have just finished it.